Scream Into My Pillow
by Foxissofoxy
Summary: Rick finds that saving his son's life could cost him his own. Is he willing to pay the price? (AU and OOC) Rick, Lori, and Michonne centered. Shane, and Rosita along with other Walking Dead Characters intertwined.
1. The Beginning

_"I myself, as I'm writing, don't know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don't know the conclusion at all and I don't know what's going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don't know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there's no purpose to writing the story."  
 **― Haruki Murakami **_

* * *

**What in the world is this story about?**

If you can't close your eyes and re-imagine, please do not continue with this story. Don't even begin. If you are familiar with my writing you know there is a method to my madness. If you are not familiar please start with Two Islands and Pencil Skirt or the Fog Above the Trees. Proceed with Caution.

 **Is this in order?**

I am non-linear. I have to accept this flaw in the way my brain works. I hope to overcome it one day. I am looking for a cure as I type this story that is at my finger tips.

 **How should this be visualized?**

Puzzle pieces. Snapshots. Walking Dead Nuance you will find. Promise.

 _ **Was this necessary?**_

Yes. It gives me great satisfaction that if you _proceed_ you knew what you were getting into ahead of time.

You can turn the page now and if after the first three very short chapters you still don't get _it,_ I appreciate your time and attempt. Enjoy!


	2. Inside Shane's Black BMW 740i

_"I suppose I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really."_  
 _― Tennessee Williams _

* * *

"Rosita is the woman in charge. I spoke on your behalf. I happen to be very popular, and I keep the clientele happy, so she is glad to have you on board. We are the older men. Most of the women want the _way_ younger ones. Boy toys. We, you and I ain't that. We are considered distinguished and have to have a certain way about us because the women that select us are trying to pass us off as something to friends or relatives, even colleagues. Actor is the best word to describe it. You don't necessarily have to say much, but it is in your best interest to start brushing up on random shit. Business news, money, cars, foreign places, and boring ass books. Sometimes you can just get by just staying quiet. You will have a few that are just lonely. Sometimes you only need one really good and lonely sponsor. But I will tell you those that are good and lonely tend to be clingy or plain batshit crazy. Homely as fuck too. Money is good if you can have one _good_ one or a steady many."

Rick asked concerned again by the explanation given to him now that he had the approval to begin. Hesitation was lacing his voice, "Is there sex involved?"

"What the fuck you think?"


	3. Rules

_"He loves her like a gambler loves a fast racehorse or a desperate man loves whiskey. That kind of love eats a man up."_  
 _― Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina_

* * *

I appeared at her front door. She lived in a very upscale part of Atlanta, or I should say it was arranged that I meet her in a lounge bar. I had my chain with the letter M on full display. I had no idea what she looked like, but she was to find me in the crowd. It was very crowded in this club.

The scent of Marijuana perfumed the air. The light was dimmed with an occasional strobe light giving off flashes of Red and Blue. A songstress stood on stage performing an Annie Lennox version of you put a spell on me.

I found my way over to the bar and ordered a drink. I wanted desperately to hide the gold chain that had a diamond encrusted M. It was something that I would never have around my neck in a million years, but I had already earned 500.00 by just showing up to her front door to find out that she wasn't even home. Just an envelope with cash and a short letter indicating rules and the direction to where to meet.

Rule number one for tonight suggested to wear the Gold Chain that was inside so she could pick me out of the crowd just in case there were more of _my_ _kind_ in attendance. I didn't know what to make out of the _my_ _kind_ comment. It gave me pause.

The second rule indicated to not talk to her. No matter what do not talk or respond with words.

Rule three, I had to do what I was told.

Rules. There were so many of them after awhile. Rules created from her random mind for how I was to engage with her. I was relieved to see sex, not on the list.

After I passed whatever test I had another envelope presented to me standing outside her door. After the first three I was beginning to believe she was making it up as she went. Rules. Rules that applied to me.

She had given me a list when I arrived three minutes late. Her request had come two days later after our initial meeting at the lounge.

She opened the door and placed it in my hand and told me to get the fuck away from her door and go back home and try it out again tomorrow, same time. I only made 20 bucks. I made sure I was on time the next day. I couldn't help but marvel at this list.

1\. Punctual.  
2\. Don't talk.  
3\. Don't respond.  
4\. Do as I say.  
5\. Take your shoes off inside.  
6\. Cellphone goes in the drawer.  
7\. Follow me...


	4. Porch Talk

_"Extreme anxiety, fear, exhaustion, and lack of other viable options are what cause a person to surrender everything. Desperation is also the raw material of drastic change. Crisis spurs critical, dramatic shifts in a person's psyche. Only a person who is willing to lose everything will transform himself or herself. Only by moving outside our comfort zone of the past – letting go of a former being – will a person expand their state of conscious awareness. Now that I am desperate, I am dangerous. I am also ripe for transformation."_  
 _― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls_

* * *

"You talk this over with Lori?" Shane asked. He sat beside his friend on the porch step with a half empty bottle of Meryl's Fresh Brew.

"Yeah." Rick's voice was sad with knowing what Lori was potentially asking him to do.

"She's okay with it?" Shane asked cautiously.

"Lori only sees dollar signs. She thinks that what you are doing can't be too bad with the things you got. The way you dress now. The car. The house. She only sees the dollar signs. We need the money."

"What's the diagnosis for Carl?"

"We need to have the money for the surgery. It is the only way to save his life, or he will not survive to see his birthday or the next one. Carl's home now. The guy backed out the last minute. The moment he found out how rare his organ was, he saw dollar signs."

"How much his ass is trying to get out of you?"

"500k."

"What the fuck? You and Lori ain't got that kind of money!"

"We can't give up. Lori is thinking I have answers and I don't. If I could give Carl mine, I would, but I am not a match. Lori isn't a match."

"Isn't what he's doing illegal?"

"Never stopped people. He doesn't have to do it. He reminds me of that. Says the one thing to entice him is with that amount of money."

"Who's this guy?"

"He goes by Negan."

"Bastard!"

"Lori parents won't give up. I can't give up."

"What about your parents, Rick?"

"They are talking about funeral arrangements."

"You have to be shitting me?" Shane knew how religious Rick's parents were and Death to them wasn't a negative thing. God was calling for Carl to come home.

"I need you to get me in on what you are doing, Shane."

Rick held the empty bottle of beer waiting for Shane to gauge how serious he was about his request.

"Don't blame you. But this isn't just partying. Depending on the woman and her request you may find yourself having to make decisions to do things that you wouldn't normally do. I'm not sure who Rosita will set you up with but some shit you got to do to make money. You have to be accessible to these women, who ever it may be. If you want the money, you got to, or you will be back at square one with someone new or staring at Lori across the bedside of Carl. Do you understand what I am saying to you?"

"Yeah," Rick replied.


	5. Michonne At 100 miles An Hour

"Don't dare a person who has nothing else left to lose."  
― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Kiss an Angel

* * *

Michonne turned down the volume in her Canary yellow Lamborghini when she saw the flashing blue lights as she zoomed pass at 100 miles an hour on what was normally a deserted road. The police were not in pursuit of her. It was a signal from Sheriff Herschel that was relayed to anyone on patrol to tell her to slow the fuck down. But instead, Michonne turned down the volume of the music Kendrick Lemar Element...

 _I don't give a fuck, I don't give a fuck_  
 _I don't give a, I don't give a, I don't give a fuck_

 _I'm willin' to die for this shit_  
 _I done cried for this shit, might take a life for this shit_  
 _Put the Bible down and go eye for an eye for this shit_  
 _D.O.T. my enemy, won't catch a vibe for this shit..._

She _had a call coming in, and she answered without a hello, just silence. She decreased the song's volume slightly more to let her friend know that she was actively listening. Rosita's voice came through on her car speakers, "Hello to you, Lady."_

 _"What do you want?" Michonne asked, keeping her eye on the road maintaining her speed._

"I think I found someone for you, but you haven't given me the go ahead. He's anxious to get to work, and I know there are several that will snatch him up, and it would be a long while before he would be available again. He's fresh. He's not tainted. I've sent the pictures to you. He has given me both pictures with no facial hair and facial hair. He grows it pretty quickly if that is your preference."

 _"_ He's white," Michonne stated the obvious. She still had reservations about it.

"How many black men do you think I am going to be able to find for you, Chica? Each one you had a problem with whether it is hot breath, the way they speak English, mannerism, or not knowing what the fuck is a Bidet, your choices are fucking limited to what is on the menu that I sent you."

"What is your point, Rosita?"

"You may need to come out of your comfort zone or find a man in real life even if he wants you for your money. Kind of the arrangement now anyway."

"Difference is that I am not being fooled by love. The difference is that this on my terms, my rules. I know what it is and I am aware that it is an arrangement. Difference. Tired of loving losers. Tired of Love."

"Yes or no?"

Rosita had no patience for the ramblings of a mad, angry black woman who was putting a strain on her supply.

Michonne parked her car on the side of the road and pulled up the photos of the man with the bluest eyes that seem to pierce her harden heart. Clean face and the Facial hair picture were side by side. She preferred the one with the beard with gray edges even though the clean shaven was nice. Real nice. If anything were consistent, it was his eyes.


	6. She Wants Me To Be Like Shane

"Just as the desperate, terminally ill cancer patient often turns to expensive placebos for an imaginary chance at more life, the desperate, terminally alive sad people turn to expensive placebos for a chance to imagine a decent life."  
― Sarah Perry, Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide

* * *

"He needs the transplant." Lori declared. The pain in her voice didn't go unnoticed.

This wasn't something Rick didn't know. This wasn't something that was news to him nor their community that came out in droves to help. No one was a match for Carl's situation. Databases were used by the hospital. Carl illness was an extreme medical case. A very specific match was doubtful until that fateful day the devil was ready to come to the rescue but not with out stipulations.

"What in the hell you expect me to do, Lori?"

Lori eyed her husband. Well, she cut her eye at him, and it didn't go unnoticed. It sliced Rick in ways that he felt he was still failing his wife. Still disappointing her even though he was doing all that he could within his means. She sat in the car next to him as he waited at the drive thru pharmacy for his new prescription of Percocet.

He was in pain, and the pounding in his head indicated he was ready to overdose if he didn't get out of the pickup truck and walk. Walking cleared his mind.

With no medical insurance, he paid the price, and he drove over to the nearest parking spot which surprised his wife of 15 years.

"Do you want to know what Shane does to earn the money he has? Do you want to know what he does to wear the nice suits and drive the fucking nice cars?" Rick's voice was angry.

"I don't care, Rick. I don't. He has a means, and you don't seem to understand that we need to help Carl by any means necessary. It's not like you are going out to sell drugs or rob people." Lori tried to rationalize.

"Does it bother you at all what _IS_ expected of me from some of them?"

"Some of them! Find the ones that aren't looking for it, Rick. And if it comes down to it-do what the hell you have to do for our _Son_!"

Rick took the three Percocet without water and got out of the car after throwing the bottle in his glove box, slamming it shut. He didn't care that the door hit the knees of his wife when he had opened it. He didn't say sorry. He was livid.

He left Lori on the passenger-side with the keys still in the ignition.

Five miles from home...


	7. Assisted Suicide

"We desperately want to believe in something. To simply live out our lives believing in nothing is to live as if this thing we call life is filled with nothing but nothing."  
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

* * *

"How can you even breathe?"

"Michonne..." The words from his wife hit him hard. He felt the puncture to his heart and his mind. She was breaking him into pieces when he was already feeling like nothing.

"I wish it was you." Michonne spat out.

"Michonne..." There was no consoling her. There was no talking her down when she got into her sobbing fits. There was no sorry to repair what was done on his watch. She pounded her fist in to him. He was battered and felt he deserved to be pummeled. The pain she tried to inflict did not come close to the loss of a child. Their loss.

"My baby, Mike? My Baby? You didn't protect my baby!?" Michonne wailed until she had exhausted herself.

Michonne wanted Mike to die too. The father of her son had no right to live but he did, he was trying to survive their loss too.

Mike was considered a very prominent Artist who was growing in popularity among the very affluent who could afford his work. The former attorney turned artist and a photographer was frowned upon by both sides of their family. He had support only from his wife who wanted him to live his life.

They were both raising, Andre to live life to the fullest. Whatever his interest or desires were Michonne and Mike held a firm belief that anything could be achieved. No rules. No boundaries.

She was the first to find her husband hanging from his neck leaving behind his last piece of art for her- a drawing of Michonne and _their_ son in its very likeness.

Memories. No control over thoughts and Zoloft was her answer to slow the scenes in her head. She popped two closing the door to the room that Mike had created as a shrine to her and their little Man Andre.

There was an ugliness in her core. A harden center and nothing seemed to soften her, not even time as she debates taking her husband ashes in the Urn and flushing it down the toilet or throwing it against the wall. Her rage. She had to calm and walking would usually help with that.

She washed the pills with a glass of wine and stepped out into the night air. She walked aimlessly for 5 miles...


	8. Holding Her Joint

_"The thing is and I know this is going to sound strange- that I seem to love you sort of desperately."_  
 _―_ _L.J. Smith_ _,_ _Daughters of Darkness_

* * *

Rick contributed the effects to the Alcohol he'd just downed seconds ago and the Percocet's he swallowed in the parking lot in the driver seat of his 1998 Toyota Tercel. He was in a sea of expensive vehicles, and it didn't faze him, he stepped into the lounge based on the instructions. The gold chain around his neck, letter M encrusted with diamonds. He was ready. Dressed in a suit that was loaned to him by his childhood friend that hooked him on to how to gather money faster than all his side hustles combined. This had to be his main hustle. The small town guy equipped with the pharmaceutical courage, walked straight to the bar, moving amongst the crowd standing about bobbing heads and a few cups in the air listening to a tune that would have never played blasting in his ear and into his brain if it were any other occasion:

 _Yeah, eh, ah, nothing_  
 _Pull the trigger, ain't nobody gonna do it for you_  
 _Pull the trigger_  
 _Maybe, you should pull the fucking trigger_  
 _Pull the trigger, ain't nobody gonna do it for you_  
 _Pull the trigger, don't hesitate, just shoot_

 _Russ_

Before he could set his glass down on the bar, he was brushed up against by a blonde, scantily clad and barely 21 years old. She gave him a look, and he wondered if she was M. Her hand brushed against his abdomen, personal space invaded but he didn't recoil. The Percocet was taking effect. His guard was coming down. His wariness was fading. The pretty young girl whispered in his ear.

"Hi, stranger."

Rick smiled meekly and replied, "Hi." He couldn't maintain eye contact. He gazed about sizing up the crowded room that surrounded them feeling even less like he was part of the group. He still felt like one in a sea of bodies swaying

"What's your name?" She asked. Her lips were very close to his ear to make sure she was heard. His personal space was invaded, and he wondered how far this would go before he would feel the need to step back and give appropriate space to him and her.

"Rick."

Damn. Rick cursed under his breath. He forgot to use an alias. Shane would kick him right about now. This was new to Rick, and already he was failing. He blamed it on the alcohol and pills he popped. Yeah. He was feeling slightly buzzed. Soon he will feel completely relaxed.

"My name is Beth. I haven't ever seen you in this place. I come here every Thursday night. You missed the spoken word."

Rick realized that this young girl wasn't who he was there to meet. He was to meet M, and he adorned the chain to indicate he was present. That he was the one in the location that had many people packed inside. She was not M which meant he had to wait for her to claim him. She knew what he looks like. She had the advantage. From the corner of his eye, he did notice a woman making her approach from across the floor coming his way. M?

Absently he asked the young girl, "Spoken word?"

"Yes. Michonne was awesome tonight. Everyone was great, but Michonne was incredible."

The tall, slender woman dressed in a designer labeled dress fresh from a store hanger closed the distance, Rick did not reject her intentions to lead him away from the younger woman, based on how she took his arm. Rick was relieved that this woman was at least a 7, compared to the woman two weeks ago named Carol and the one before her name Deanna, this female was appealing and was close to his age. He felt guilty feeling relieved by the idea of finding someone attractive enough. Attractive enough to what

She was Latina with long dark hair holding on to his wrist, Rick followed, not realizing his diamond studded M was reflecting by the strobe lights, a signal sent to VIP to the actual person that was waiting patiently for his arrival.

VIP wasn't where he was headed or led. Rick found himself in a barely lit corner with a vacant lounger made for two, a seating arrangement that promoted intimacy through the waft of marijuana smoke clouds.

The woman relaxed next to him on the large white chaise arranged among others in various colors planted among the regular chairs and tables.

"What is your name?" She asked.

"My name is Rick."

His real name fell again from his lips. He wasn't a good liar, and he was proving his inability to remember that he needed to keep some level anonymity. Rick had plenty to hide from this world he began to embark.

The tempo of the music remained hypnotic to those who embraced the Genre; a person had to be uptight not to allow his body to move along with the tune bouncing from speaker to walls and pummelling the ear drums if they were on the other side of the room where the dance floor was overly crowded. This area in which he sat was noticeably quieter. Intimate.

Rick's eyes found the young blond girl that introduced herself as Beth accepting a free drink from a man that was old enough to be her father.

"You look very handsome. I have not seen you here before. Is this your first time?"

"Yeah."

"Very nice suit. I bet you drive a nice car?" The woman imagined.

"Well, actually a 1998 Toyota Tercel. Black"

"You are hilarious." The Spanish accent that laced her Rs would have given Rick's name a whole new sound if she would have asked him, but she never did during their short conversation. Usually, he had difficulty understanding people with foreign accents; not many lived in King's County to get accustomed. He was able to understand her. "Seriously what car did you drive here?"

The alcohol and the pills had him easily more relaxed than when he first stepped into the Speak Easy Upscale Lounge. "I am serious. Toyota Tercel. " Rick admitted, shameless.

"Very funny. I love a man with a sense of humor. Did you enjoy the Spoken Word earlier?"

"I missed it."

"When I was on stage, this is what I said..."

The woman he sat with continued to rub up and down his arm. Her accent became heavier, and it made it difficult to understand what she was practically purring in his ear. She was more attractive than the other two women that he found himself when he began this endeavor. Her small hand ran across his chest. Rick glanced down wondering where her hand was going to travel to when he caught a shimmer of blue headed his way. He nervously glanced away from the errant hand to the shimmery blue that climbed on top yanking his chain into an almost choke hold. His eyes immediately took in the dark skin chocolate woman with a giant afro that caused his heart and his breathing to stop.

Rick didn't realize that he forgot to breathe until her mouth encased his and against his will, his lips opened to capture hers as she blew a billow of smoke into his mouth. He inhaled further and allowed the smoke to circulate down into his lungs and his bloodstream. He then contributed the rest to the alcohol, the Percocet and the second-hand Marijuana smoke that he had blown into his mouth for what he did next, continued to do for two minutes straight. If the woman would have continued, wanted to continue he would have. He kissed her hungrily after he blew back out the smoke between her tongue and his. Sparks flickered, and he allowed the fuel to increase the fire.

He wanted her to sit back on his harden member that stiffen and twitched alive. The grinding was unexpected while their lips locked. He wanted that friction. It drove him. The air from her lungs increased his heart rate. Desire leaped and bounced uncontrollably.

She the beautiful black woman gazed down at him, her eyes were curious, questioning and Rick wanted nothing more than to provide answers in hopes to continue the amazing, wonderful taste of the forbidden. He wanted her badly, painfully so. This was unexpected and different. The burn was sweet.

Loosening her grip on the chain where the M glimmered from the lights that flashed randomly through the area, the petite, apt, and sexily dressed woman on top glanced at the letter and back at the man. He was ready. Go.

She leaned forward. Rick thought for sure they were going to kiss again. He was eager, but she bypassed his lips and spoke into his ear, "I am Michonne. You are here for me. I am M."

The woman he originally came to the corner with was quickly forgotten as he followed Michonne to VIP, holding her joint.


	9. Divert Those Baby Blues

_"Things are never as they seem. A person. A Mark. A statement. They are always deeper than we perceive, like walking in the ocean and suddenly dipping under the surface because the bottom has disappeared beneath your feet. The water appears shallow until you are suddenly flailing around beneath the surface, desperately searching for stable ground once again."_  
 _―_ _Kelseyleigh Reber_

* * *

Pictures were sent before she made her selection. She was particular, and she didn't want to be bothered by just anyone nor any man. Details she wasn't concerned with, and her friend Rosita was aware of this.

Michonne had three requirements, well, four: STD free, Attractive, and follow her Rules.

Michonne was surprised that Rosita hadn't given up trying to send someone her way. The rumors that Michonne was slightly out of control and spent days and weeks alone in her Penthouse or House on the River was a concern to all of the men that were sent her way.

Yes, there were suitable suitors but Michonne's wealth made her more enticing for those who tried to get close enough, and that was a feat in itself, to get in position to take advantage. Pretenses. She was tired of it.

Other than her husband there wasn't anyone that interested Michonne. Most men had the infamous words that annoyed her the most, "I don't usually date black women, but you are different."

How so motherfucker? She knew the answer was probably because she had money. Lots of money. Her husband left her well off, and she was already considered wealthy before his death.

Instead of men thinking they were going to take her for a ride on her dime she tried out Rosita's services a few times. She was never out of much money. Rule number one was broken almost immediately. Don't fucking talk.

There were two pictures she requested to see, and the two were provided within a few weeks of each other. Michonne wanted to know if he could grow facial hair and what it would look like. His striking blue eyes made him visually appealing in both photos. She kept going back to his pictures.

There was a fundraiser in a few weeks, and she needed an unknown by her side. She was okay going alone if she couldn't break this person in with following the most basic rule.

She was paying for companionship. Rules set up front. No misunderstandings. The ability to discard and find someone new at few moments notice if she desired to do so.

 _Maybe, you should pull the fucking trigger_  
 _Pull the trigger, ain't nobody gonna do it for you_  
 _Pull the trigger, don't hesitate, just shoot_

 _Russ_

She knew her logic was flawed but she blamed it on the line of coke she snorted in VIP while she waited, the alcohol she tossed back after taking a long drag from the joint that was passed to her from Andrea.

Michonne noticed the _M_ sparkling as he walked passed T-Dogg, the bouncer who gave the nicely dressed man a second look. The gold chain with the letter _M_ dangling could not be ignored in all of its gaudy glory. If it were a Crucifix not another glance would have been given, a cross on a man would have been similar to a watch on a wrist.

He had a bowlegged gait. The suit tailored for another man but he wore it well, standing at the bar and tossing back a drink. Brown liquid. Courage.

The first woman approached him was barely legal. Michonne watched his demeanor. He didn't leer at the girl.

Donna made her approach quickly and scooped him up out of her sight where Michonne no longer had the visual vantage point in VIP.

Damn. She would have to get up and retrieve him before the claws were dug in unnecessarily by the Spanish siren.

Michonne had on a loose fitting blue jumpsuit with V cut front and back. Braless. Her hardened nipples were outlined. She wore a wig along with all her female friends who were in VIP. A _Wig_ _Out_ party reserved by Sasha who didn't have a wig. Her hair already made the perfect Afro. Michonne's hair was dread locked and hidden in a larger than life Foxy Brown black synthetic wig for the night. A wig she kept in her closet for when ever an occasion came for her to don one.

Michonne's actions were way out of character for her; she was high when she climbed on his lap and straddled him. She squeezed the chain around his neck tight enough to get his attention. His full attention. She held her breath making sure she felt the powerful buzz on top of the buzz she was already experiencing. The sharing turned into a kiss. Was she even higher from kissing him?

A kiss that grew into a long kiss when he expelled what she blew inside of his mouth. His breath mixed with the scent of marijuana and the scotch he tossed back had her incredibly aroused.

The real art of kissing. The art of the right amount of tongue to paint a canvas. Colors burst forth from the black whites, grays, to bright orange and then Red. She stopped. The only thing she could think of was to tell him her name, and for him to hold her joint if she hadn't, she knew she was going to fuck him right then and there.

In VIP, he followed her. She knew his name, and she was impressed that he didn't tell her. He was not to talk.

Michonne introduced him to everyone in VIP as Rick. He was silent when she told him where to sit. He didn't speak to anyone. His eyes told her all she wanted to know. He was high, and he wanted to fuck too.

Something about his eyes kept sobering her. His eyes was draining her of her buzz. She was going to add that on the list the next time, if she remembered. He wasn't allowed to look at her. Divert those baby blues.

Rick took a long drag from her joint he was holding. She didn't give him permission. He handed it over to Sasha who had asked for a puff. Michonne had a shot of brown liquor delivered for Rick and she watched him toss it back. He was a different man from seconds ago. Michonne felt if she knew him better she could name that subtle change as he began to vibe to the music. His eyes glued to her. Yes a new rule. Divert.

...

A/N:

I am taking Michonne somewhere but if you focus on her erratic behavior you will miss it. Trust me. These two people are in pain and I will go deeper about it after I wake up in a few hours.


	10. Deanna and Carol

"When the waterholes were dry, people sought to drink at the mirage."  
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

* * *

Three Percocet and a Xanax. I was able to relax and pretend that I was interested in the woman that no matter how much makeup she had plastered on her face she was old. Older than me. Psychiatrist. Widow. Rich. Art Show. Deposit 2k. The second encounter was a medical marijuana function where she gave a speech. I sat next to her. I was her man. 3k grand. Lori was off my back.

I had to finger fuck this woman who insisted she wanted her lesbian lover to watch. I couldn't do it. She gave me a dildo, and I went to work, but I wasn't requested back. She wanted to be finger fucked by me. My finger was as limp as my dick. I could grip the rabbit.

Shane was worried for me. He said that I better make things right with Carol that night or Rosita would fire me. As a man, I didn't have permission to be a prude in a business that had women verbalizing desire in things very intimate. They were attracted to me but I wasn't attracted to them.

I was also asked not to return when it came down to Carol. I didn't make it to the Second go around. I had to return 1500 of the 3k.

I just couldn't bring myself to go down on her. She wanted tongue on her private parts. No kissing. She called that spot her Puma. I thought it was the hairiest cat I had ever seen in my life.

I thought I was officially fired, but I got the unexpected call from Rosita that I had one more chance and I was specially selected by this person that she would only reveal as M.

Lori was relieved.


	11. My Fault

"When your heart's been cut out, how's it going to feel knowing that _you're the one who wielded the knife_?"  
― Peter David, Imzadi

* * *

"Hey, champ." Rick ruffled his son's hair.

"Hi, Dad!" Carl said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster sitting on the couch in front of the television.

"What are you doing?"

"Watching the 1st season of the, Walking Dead, again."

"Want some company?"

"Do you plan to ask a lot of questions?" Carl was hesitant.

"How do you feel?" His father avoided the question which would have held the obvious answer.

"Like shit."

"Carl-"

"Sorry, Dad." Carl apologized for his language.

"I wish..." Rick trailed off with his thoughts. He hated the helpless feeling that overcame him when it came to protecting his son, ensuring his survival at any cost. He felt the third chance he was given was his final chance and he wasn't going to blow it.

"I know. You would trade places with me. You would rather be the one that is dying. Well, if you think about it-we are all the walking dead."

"Sorry to disappoint you son but no one is dying. No reanimation." Rick sat on the couch next to his son. He made sure that he got a fist full of popcorn from Carl's bowl.

"But my point Dad is that we are all going to die."

Carl tried to relay that he accepted his fate. Someone had to have had their sight taken away not to see the internal battle that his Dad fought every day that he looked for work and any handouts the community could spare. Without the organ, everything else was considered experimental, and the hospitals shied away from trying everything possible under the sun moon and stars. Money talked.

"The thing about that Carl, I am going to make sure I do everything in my power to ensure death is in the natural order. We found a match."

"But-"

"The rest is my worry."

"Well, I think you mean Mom's worry and your problem." Carl chuckled slightly before continuing, "What ever arrangement you had to make it happen Mom is pissed off that you blew it."

Carl noticed his father's demeanor change slightly. He wasn't sure why or what he may have said to cause the reaction.

"Is she talking to you about things?" Rick asked cautiously.

"I've only overheard a little. She was on the phone with Gramps telling him that you'd quit. That you just didn't try to do what it takes."

"I didn't quit. I got a new assignment for tomorrow." Rick corrected the information without indicating he had been fired and then rehired.

"Why would mom think-" Carl began.

"Are we going to talk about your Mom or are we going to watch the Deputy ride into the city on a horse."

"Dad?" Carl questioned his Dad's ability to stay quiet and stop finding plot holes.

"How long was he in a coma again while the dead were walking around outside his hospital room?"


	12. Rosita's Office

"People never know what they are capable of until all other options run out."  
― Lance Conrad, The Price of Loyalty

* * *

"You had two opportunities, Ricardo."

"My name is Rick." I corrected her. She was a very attractive woman. Well dressed. Strictly business and a no nonsense attitude.

"You really think this is a good look for me what you did with my two clients?" Rosita questioned.

I had no response. I felt my dick shrivel more at the thought of Deanna and Carol. I had no time to warm up to the idea of sex. If I had known I could have taken Five Percocet and tossed down a couple of Xanax. The realization hit me that if I took that much of my medication I would have been a Zombie or Dead. Fuck. I may have to look into the Ambien at my next doctor visit.

Rosita stared at me as if I wasn't well. She was waiting for a response. The only thing she received was silence.

"You had two opportunities, Reynaldo."

"I know." I was going to correct her about my name but my heart raced and I was breaking into a sweat.

"Why should I give you another chance?"

"You shouldn't."

"You are right. I shouldn't." Rosita walked away from the front of her large desk, where she stood with her arms folded. She went to her large leather chair and sat. She opened the manila folder that had my photo and measurements.

The finality of it all. I was crushed.

"Your name is Rick?"

"Yes."

"We should have come up with a better name than that." Rosita tried the name out on her tongue still preferring Ricardo.

I was surprised when she gave me one last chance. This was my last chance to save Carl. I had Lori and Shane both in my ear telling me how I messed up. Lori's last words before we officially stopped talking to each other was that _I_ killed our son.

Shane was waiting for me outside of Rosita's office when I came out appearing relieved. He patted me on the back.

"Please tell me you didn't beg or tell her your story."

"I didn't say a thing about my dying son and my wife who is in agony over it all. My wife who is taking care of Carl the best way she knows how because we can't afford a 24-hour nurse or better yet to save his life."

"Hey buddy, slow down there. This is a celebration not who's dick can piss in the Cheerios from way across the room. I'm just making sure you keep the Debbie Downer shit to yourself. You don't want to find yourself permanently fired. Rosita doesn't play around with crap. She is about keeping her business running. The women ain't trying to mess around with everything that weighs you down. You have an anchor around your neck. I am trying to help save your fucking life while you try and save Carl. Hell. Anything you say can make me look like the liar. I lied to Rosita for you, you know."

I gave Shane a look that indicated he _was_ a liar and he became exasperated, walking ahead of me to leave the building to get to his car.

"I was selected. Someone picked me, requested me." I blurted.

Shane halted next to his driver door when we came up to the shiny white car.

Shane had informed me that anyone that is in the ranks of selecting was possibly the Clingy or Batshit crazy ones with more money than should be allowed. My forewarning had me braced as I slid into the passenger side of his 2017 Porsche Panamera.

From a Black BMW to what he was driving now, a White Porsche. The two cars didn't seem like anything the man I knew from way back in our younger days, would have ever chosen for himself. Shane used to be a Dodge Ram pick up type.

This _was_ different, and the engine was like the sound of music.


	13. Sky Dive

"it was times like these when a man in a desperate situation must take whatever madness is offered to escape the darker madness in which he finds himself trapped."  
― Sean F. Hogan, Painting Angels

* * *

"I need to pick up another prescription."

"I thought you were going to wean off of those, Rick?" Lori questioned. She watched her husband stand by the bedroom dresser shaking the pill bottle that indicated he was down to his last few Percocet. He reached for the second bottle. He was holding his Xanax.

Rick placed the small orange bottle down with the white cap and labeled back on the dresser that contained his pain meds.

He intended to respond to his wife but thought better of it. His thoughts she wouldn't understand. Over the years he had learned that she considered them excuses or it caused her to brace or stiffen because it wasn't what she wanted to hear.

Lori had become someone he could not confide, and things that were bottled up inside were bigger than what the pill bottle could contain or relieve. He was losing his way and clarity is what became painful.

Feelings were growing out of control, and he was losing focus on what was his actual intent in all of this continually blinded by his hidden desire.

The intention was to take care of Carl, and in the process, Rick had lost himself to save his son.

Purposeful. He acted. This was deemed the last resort. In the process, Rick was finding that it dangerously caused him to find a new addiction.

The small medicine bottle began to have a new meaning. The pills affected Rick differently based on the circumstances.

They were prescribed due to the work related injury he sustained a couple of years back from having a box fall on him when he was helping deliver furniture for his parents using their pickup truck. It happened at his parents home, and Lori was pissed that Rick wouldn't sue his parents or at least go after the home insurance.

He felt he would have been better off with the deputy position that was offered but Lori was adamantly against it. She didn't want him with a gun or a job he could get hurt. He was hurt with out that job. He had more cuts and bruises as the town Handy Man. Side jobs. Side hustles. What he was paid to do now he didn't consider it a hustle or a side job.

What he was doing now was messing with his chemical makeup. This was more than man- made chemistry. It did start out a prescription base. It had a mix of destiny and fate with of course an understanding of Human Biology. His attraction became magnified, and without the pills, he wasn't in a haze nor could he explain it away.

He wasn't high the last two months spending time with Michonne. He was high more and more to come home, to stay home, to be the husband to walk in the shoes that were painful.

He wore shackles that were tightening, but he wasn't aware when he was with the most intriguing woman he had ever met. They were leaving Atlanta together. Michonne had planned something out of the blue for the two of them to do. He couldn't wait to get out of the house away from his Ball and Chain. He was going to drown, Suffocate.

Rick thought better of the refill. He was going sky diving, and he grabbed just his Xanax.


	14. Rough Hands

"The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are."  
― Fernando Pessoa

* * *

"Damn where did you get hands like that?" Michonne gazed into his eyes for answers.

She didn't remember the roughness of those hands that grabbed her right hand and pressed the highly decorative apple size Japanese ginger jar in the palm of her left hand.

From that simple interaction, she knew he was upset. He knew what was in the jar.

"Nosey ass." Michonne accused staring him down.

Michonne had no idea what had happened to Rick who was pulled over by the cops earlier. Luckily, the police weren't concerned with the contents inside of the jar that he placed in the cup holder. They were concerned with who's vehicle he was driving when he scrambled to find the registration that was attached to the visor instead of in the glove box after he had shown his license.

Michonne didn't like the way that he was looking at her, demonizing her when he was also fighting his own, "Don't be a damn hypocrite." She spat.

He had taken his left hand from the back of hers that had held her palm up, with the jar in her hand she clasped down and held the object at her side. Michonne took his left hand quickly and marveled at the callouses, healed over cuts, hardness, undeniable strength that caught her breath, finding even in the tips no softness. Hands that could soak forever and never regain it's complete smoothness. Nothing like the hands she was most familiar.

She took his left hand and placed it inside of her loose fitting shirt that slightly exposed the fact she was braless, covering her breast, Rick's eyes found hers and locked.

She wanted to know what rough hands would feel like upon her breast, against her skin that was sensitive. Her nipples responded instantly. A spark.

"I have only had idle hands touch me." She breathed out. Again this man had taken her breath and increased her heart rate. After a moment longer, she slapped his hand away.


	15. The Power Of My Eyes

"I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both."  
― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

* * *

Rick didn't realize that his hand reacted the moment that she placed his hand inside of her shirt.

The anger he had dissipated. He felt the ebb of something else that began to increase as he gazed into her brown eyes with the darkest pools for reasoning to this, to all of this. Instinctive, without thought, it was less than a caress but a tenting of his palm as he felt the nipple react to his hand. She had the softest skin he was ever given permission to touch.

The nipple in the center of his palm caused a flicker, and then it was gone. Michonne removed his hand and took the gift from the Korean courier named Glen that he had to procure for her. He was at the mercy of her whims. He was there to satisfy her desires. Two he realized at that moment. She wanted him not to speak and to fetch.

Cocaine.

I snorted with her. I had tried it before in my early twenties. It didn't do anything for me or to me then as it had no effect that was noticeable on me with Michonne.

She had gone in a rage. She accused me of accusing her with my eyes that she was a junkie and couldn't quit. She threw the jar against the wall to prove her point. Powder dusted every where. We snorted off the floor. It was our last time with the illegal stuff. I guess my eyes told her to stop the shit. She stopped.


	16. My Rules

" _And I want to tell you about everything but I can't because I couldn't stand for you to have that look on your face all the time. I just need you to look at me and think that I'm normal. I just really need that from you."_  
 ** _― Nina LaCour, Hold Still _**

* * *

There was a number eight that I couldn't remember until his eyes looked back at me. It was his damn eyes. I had to remember to add that to the list. I was in a rush to create the new list. I had 60 seconds before he rung my doorbell.

"Number eight is going to be, 'Don't look me in the eye.' I am going to make sure of it next time. I just have to remember."

He quickly diverted his eyes. I instantly had regrets for saying it. The absence of his eyes looking into mine made things awkward.

I stepped aside and allowed him in, and he pulled off his shoes. He stood there taking in my place as I marveled that he was damn good looking in his very cheap clothes. I had a good feeling he probably looked good naked.

The way he was working my list was short of amazing in the few minutes he was inside my second home in the upscale part of Atlanta. He pulled out his cell phone and placed it inside the drawer of the wall mounted Credenza that was by the front door. He had shut it off.

I lost my head for a second in my excitement, and I grabbed his shirt and kissed him, and the way he kissed me back was unacceptable. I shoved him away, and he gave that look of confusion.

"I have no idea what you think is happening here. I am not that type of woman you know. I am not easy to get into bed and have your way with. That sir wasn't the kissing back I wanted you to do. I am not easy, Rick. I am not. I am a very complicated person, and it's best you understand it now."

The stare down. I kissed him again so he could get it out of his system and I found myself with a need I couldn't fathom possible. I shoved him again.

"We aren't doing this ever again. Do you hear me? I am putting that on the list when you are invited back, in the meantime follow me."

I had to remember to add, Don't look at me and Don't kiss me. After that day, I wanted him to come back because he did well with doing absolutely nothing with me.


	17. Breaking Michonne's Rules

_"Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in."_  
 _― Katherine Mansfield_

* * *

It wasn't hard to break additional rules. They were designed to be bent, manipulated or broken.

 _Don't look at her_.

I wasn't looking at her. I was watching her. I was gazing at her. I was glancing, staring, peering, or ogling her. The ogling was when she wasn't looking at me with eyes agape over her beauty and body. That ass.

She knew if I was regarding her, considering her or plain judging her. I think she began to appreciate my point of view.

 _Don't kiss her_.

Okay. The kissing was the hardest and I rationalized that because Michonne always randomly made a move to kiss me, she never said not to kiss her _back_.

A kiss that led to kissing, I began to wait with abated breath for those moments as I found myself a model prisoner to Michonne's whims that eventually became my own.

Michonne told me to sit and read the paper. She circled the things she wanted me to read in advance of me arriving. Environmental News. Political News and Strange News of the Day. That was what our first day in her place consisted of, reading. I cleared my voice and began to read. I didn't consider _that_ talking to her. Whether or not to read aloud wasn't on the list. She didn't stop me either, but it did make the list the next time I was over to her place as a DO NOT READ OUT LOUD.

I was going to make sure I read at a much lower volume.

* * *

A/N:

You may noticed that this chapter has changed. The other portion that I removed will have it's on standalone and may be why it is familiar to you in the near future. I was losing perspective on this and made the correction. Apologies.


	18. Time Out

_"They send a person who can never stay," she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help ... just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with."_  
 _..._  
 _As I sailed into the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn't help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if."_  
 _―_ ** _Rick Riordan_ _,_ _The Battle of the Labyrinth_**

* * *

Fall. Falling. Free falling. We were both faced with a choice, or so we thought. Either way, the landing was going to be hard and felt for days if we weren't on the same page.

"Don't you dare pull. Don't. Not yet." Michonne commanded me as I felt weightless even with the pull of gravity. I was soaring, and my heart was pounding. Adrenaline. I have been high before but nothing quite compared to this. Speed.

We were flying, and her laugh was in my ear from the mike she wore. I had no way to vocalize my next move, just flying by the seat of our pants. Jumping out of the plane was throwing caution to the wind.

I only had the ear piece. Michonne was hell-bent even then for me to not speak to her. To not tell her everything that I was feeling expressed in words. I think she subconsciously, wanted me to feel. Feel her. Feel how out of control and shitty our lives were, no one to save us but ourselves. The reality was she was trying to kill us both.

Poetic.

She gave this insight to me I later thought, and I accepted it for what it was and for what it could be after I decided to act. Michonne presented me with a clearer picture of being powerless and having Power. I now knew the difference as the world became more apparent when I finally woke from her hypnotic spell her brown eyes had me under because a gust of eastward winds blew me upward and then closer to her. I guess I was falling faster than her and God came in to make it even between us.

I focused where my feet weren't standing. My eyes transfixed downward. Nothing came close to what was happening to me, to her or us.

The ground. The earth. The force of gravity. The pounding of hearts dulled by the first leap than the flight, soaring. A Rush. Head and mind felt the wind, the air, the pressure. Pressure to release into vanishing whites, grays, hues of blue soon the hint of green.

Earth. The rush of the wind, air, pressure. Pressure to release. Blue and Brown, we were falling.

"Are you ready to die?" Michonne asked her voice small compared to the whistling, whirling wind in my ear.

My eyes held hers. I was breaking Michonne's rule in doing so. I didn't care because it was my life and my choice on how I wanted to die. I never considered, "Splat as an option."

We both couldn't have our heads in the clouds. Not at the same time.

She received my answer when I pulled her motherfucking cord and then I pulled my own. The wind took her further away from me and I from her. The jolt of no longer free falling as if we didn't have a parachute. The slow decline caused my mind and all the things that mattered to have a proper place in my subconscious mind. Focus.

We needed a time out. Separated. I didn't think it was possible to have my alone time until I found myself stuck in some tree branches, but that's where I hung ready to go into cardiac arrest if I could only get down, I thought.


	19. What About Your Needs and My Needs?

_"Sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done."_  
 _― **Madonna**_

* * *

The money began to trickle in, and it wasn't close to the amount we needed, but it was steady as long as I followed the Rules.

Lori was more hopeful than ever before. The mood in the home shifted. The atmosphere was less negative than just months ago. After I procured this arrangement and it seemed to work out, Lori began making more plans for me to meet the demands of Negans Timeline. Negan. Isn't Carl the one that has the timeline?

She wanted me to be more open to entertaining others. I sat back in my chair at our kitchen table where she kept her back to me as she spoke.

"I thought if there were other people..."

Lori and her vagueness. I braced myself for how she was going to continue this direction in our conversation.

"I mean based on the amount so far..."

One thing that I never did was guess what Lori was implying or going to say next. I lost my appetite either way. She would eventually get to it.

"You have been home for more than a week and in the mean time..."

"In the mean time what, Lori?"

"In three months you have made almost 50k. The amount varies, and if you can keep doing whatever it is that gets the larger amounts versus..."

I have never told Lori what it is that I do with Michonne. I have never mentioned it, and Lori has never outright asked. I wasn't going to tell her. I didn't have a way to tell her at this point, and if I did, she wouldn't like the words or the depiction I presented.

What made me not share this? The more I thought about it, the more I realized-I wasn't going to lie. To share Michonne was to minimize the woman I enjoyed most spending time with. I would have to use words to make it palatable to Lori to accept. I wasn't going to do that, and I felt that I couldn't.

My stare she avoided. For whatever reason, she preferred to show me her back when making a request. I realized she has been doing that for years. My wife never really looked at me.

Her list of complaint never consisted of actually taking the time to see how it all affected me. Made me wonder if she cared about me at all.

She finally got to what she wanted me to know, for me to think about doing. Because to her, I have been sitting on my ass for six days and I could go and ask Shane to put in a good word for me so I can do what it takes with other people that were willing to pay for it.

It almost motivated me to tell her that Michonne doesn't pay for me to have sex with her. She pays for my time and company. I take that money for Carl. I would gladly have sex with Michonne for fucking free.

The last thing I wanted to do is give Lori the impression that there were more Michonne's out there. A fantasy. Michonne was clingy and batshit crazy. Possibly Bipolar or just plain crazy and she would say the same shit about me. Plus I signed an exclusive agreement. Rosita wasn't permitted to set me up with anyone else. I didn't tell Lori shit.

"Do you think I would be okay if you were whoring yourself out to other men?"

She finally turned the faucet off and positioned her body so I could see the surprise on the side of her face.

"I have to take care and monitor Carl."

"While you are _whoring_ yourself out I could take care of Carl. Most times he's sitting on that damn couch watching television."

"I have to give him his medication and monitor-"

"I could do that too while you slide up and down random dick, but I would never ask you to do that Lori. I wouldn't. It is unfathomable to me even now that you are okay with me doing it."

"Carl needs-"

"No. Our needs. What about _Your_ needs and _My_ needs."

"You are such a selfish Bastard."

"And you are such a Bitch."

It was the first time I had ever called my wife a Bitch. I had her full attention then.


	20. Superman Pissed Me Off

_"Most people want to be circled by safety, not by the unexpected. The unexpected can take you out. But the unexpected can also take you over and change your life. Put a heart in your body where a stone used to be."_  
 _― Ron Hall _

* * *

We had jumped.

I've done it before. Skydiving wasn't my first time like it was for Rick. I pretended that it _was_ to make it feel like we were learning something new together. I am actually a certified and trained Sky Diver. The instructor knew this and played along.

Rick and I were so high in the sky that clouds were our starting point of knowing just how high we were in our Euphoria.

My husband and I loved to do it together, maybe four or five times a year I could get Mike out in the extreme altitudes, but then Andre...My baby.

Thinking about my son renewed my purpose. Falling was the best way to go. Never worry about the landing.

"Stop fighting it, Rick. Give into it." I had the Mic and he had the Ear Piece.

There were so many expressions that I read on his face. To see wonder and Awe caught me by surprise. I pushed for the two to highjack his hesitation and fear. Eyes wide he actually began to accept what we were doing. We were together flying before we started to make our descent. We descended by a large amount of Speed. I was hyped up on Amphetamines, and he was on something else. He had to have been on something else.

At the time he pulled my cord there was a gust of the westerly winds that took me up and farther away from him. I was going to land in the middle of a murky lake. I did not want to die a watery death. I heard the snap of unclasping my harness. I was free of my parachute and dove head first breaking into the water as if I were an Olympic diver.

It was so dark down there.

The coldness and the weight. I felt fear, and if I waited a moment longer, I would have gone into Cardiac arrest.

I realized then when I came up for air that sometimes we don't get a choice on how or when we die. We have to choose to live. I had made my decision to live despite how hard of a fight it was to stay motivated sometimes.

I chose to live.

I pulled the parachute further out of the water onto land. I jogged half a mile to find Rick tangled in trees.

He was looking down, and I was looking up at him when I spoke.

"I saw the fences were down. I heard the moans. It was over. And Mike and Terry, they were high when it happened. They were bit. Could have stopped it. Could have killed them. But I let them turn. I made it so they couldn't bite, couldn't scratch. I tied chains around their necks. It was insane. It was sick. It felt like what I deserved, dragging them around so that I would always know. I found out that they kept me safe. They hid me. The walkers didn't see me anymore. I was just another monster. And I was. Me. I was gone for a long time. But then-"

"I am taking away your fucking Walking Dead privileges," Rick yelled interrupting my monologue.

"How so if you are stuck up there, and you have consistently broken most of my rules. There has to be some type of punishment. You use to understand the No talking and-"

"There is a big difference between just talking and demanding. Right now this is a demand for you to get me some help so I can get the fuck down. I am stuck, not a captive audience of yours for your off the cuff impromptu-"

"You talking to me that way doesn't motivate me to want to help you. You pulled my cord at the wrong time."

"Right now, I am not motivated to listen until you help me. I pulled your cord at the right damn time because you are here!"

There was a longer than usual stare down between us. My upward to his downward.

I'd surprised him that I knew how to climb a tree to reach him.


	21. The Battle Version From Shane

_"One thing I'd learned in life was that women could bitch about their men until they were blue in the face and you could listen and nod and offer support. But you never as in never said something bad about a woman's man no matter how much she bitched or how much he may deserve it. It always came back to haunt you."_  
 _― Kristen Ashley, Rock Chick Renegade_

* * *

"Everything okay, Carl?"

I asked after stepping out of my White Porsche that I parked next to the curb in front of their home where I found Carl sitting on a stand alone swing nearest the house. I could see him from where I parked and walked over to him to ruffle his hair.

"No."

I could hear Rick and Lori arguing from outside. Carl didn't have to say more.

"I didn't want to call the police," Carl whispered. He called me instead. His Uncle Shane to save the day.

"Shit."

The sound of something smashing, I walked into the center of a mother fucking storm. The house was in disarray, and my friend Rick was bleeding. Lori was holding a knife.

"What the fuck is going on here?" I asked.

I was crazy to stand between the unarmed man that was dazed about seeing his own blood and the woman with a knife.

"Have you two forgot about Carl? He's outside. He shouldn't be outside right?"

"That is all we think about is Carl right, Rick?" Lori mocked.

"Crazy ass-" Rick yelled and walked his chest right in my hand that was positioned to stop him.

"Yes, I am the _Bitch_ , Rick."

Lori was stepping forward, and I had my hand out to halt her. Slow them both down from attacking one another.

"Leave Rick before you do something that you will regret. Leave now."

"This is my home too." Rick declared.

"I don't give a shit where you go but leave here now until things cool down. You two are both on edge about what's needed. Go on to my place, Rick. Go on."

The house felt dark and heavy and smelled of sickness, the essence of unwell or maybe just bad energy. Years ago it wasn't this way, but I realize I haven't been to their home often and I may have been among the Rich long enough for it to skew that the house may have always been this way since Carl's diagnosis a few years back.

I was relieved in hearing my friend find his keys to leave. My focus was on Lori who was very angry but watching her husband leave, my friend since childhood go out the door, she broke into a sob.

I didn't do my best to soothe, Lori. I listened to her list of complaints all the while thinking she was the most ungrateful Bitch. She hadn't changed from our days in high school.

"Do you realize that man is trying to make a way, Lori?"

"We are running out of time."

"Then you need to make good with the idea that you did the best you could and Rick has done the best he could. Fighting each other ain't changing the outcome. He's getting it as it is given to him any other way would be considered robbing or cheating his way. You and I both know Rick ain't that kind of guy. Upstanding Citizen but not America's Most Wanted. He is not Superman, and as soon as you come to terms with that, you will have peace. Carl certainly deserves it don't you think?"

Women and these Goddamn tears. I wondered if she heard a damn thing I said as she buried her face in my chest. Damn it.


	22. Ambien

_"It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step."_  
 _― Christine Feehan, Oceans of Fire_

* * *

I was breaking a major rule. Michonne had put asterisks by this Rule, but I only wanted relief. I needed comfort. That rule was to never come to her primary home. The home on the River. I had only been there once and had a good time getting a chance to know her. It was a very large home with just the two of us a few weeks ago after the Parachute incident.

That rule ended up on the list too. Never pull her cord.

I was also breaking another rule, never come to her if she didn't ask. She added that after we watched Breakfast Club one night. We were both high off of marijuana. She said a rich girl has to have standards.

I wondered which character did she think I was because none of them reflected me unless she thought I was the Physics nerdy guy. It didn't take much thought to choose Michonne as the crazy chick who said she fucked her psychiatrist but really didn't.

Michonne felt the redhead was her kindred spirit. _Okay_.

Normally, I am suppose to wait for her to invite me and it was usually a text sent late in the night with a time and date of when to show up.

I was disheartened to know she was going to be very busy for a week or two. Spending time with her was or became a highlight. I had adjusted, finding it difficult to revert back to the before I met her. I knew she had began to adjust to me.

I didn't know what she was seeing when she saw me standing at her front door. I had no idea what I looked like when I arrived uninvited and unexpected.

"What type of broke down Mafia are you running from?" Michonne gasped at the sight of me when she saw me standing there unable to hold back my tears.

"No Mafia."

Her eyes filled with tears as she tried to glean information from my own that was spilling forth the very same liquid.

"Poor, Baby."

She pressed her lips to mine and touched my open cut near my hair line. I shared this moment with someone who I wasn't sure was going to be very receptive to my hurt, my pain. She pulled me inside and kissed me ever so gently again.

I felt, what I felt, when I felt it, so strongly-I had to fight my own sob. Michonne was crying. She took a deep breath to gather herself which was a sign, I needed to do just the same.

"You love breaking my rules."

"I would love if you gave me some new ones."

"You just broke two, and now I have to add _this,_ once you tell me how you rationalized _this_ intrusion."

"Your rule was never to come to your main house or come uninvited."

"That's right." Michonne agreed.

"You never said to not come if I had a reason." I said barely above a whisper.

"I need to remember to put under _any_ circumstances, huh?"

Michonne was giving this a lot of thought.

"Then you would need to clarify what circumstances would be part of the any because I wouldn't come to you for just anything, Michonne."

I had her flustered. A flustered Michonne was a beautiful sight to me.

"With the way you reason-how did you get the short end of the stick in the fight?"

"There was a significant disadvantage, Michonne."

"Do you want me to even the score?"

Just a few minutes ago I was a hurt and broken man, seconds with Michonne had me back in utter awe that this very beautiful and wealthy woman wanted to fight for me. I had a gut feeling she would take on my issues head on, but I had never told her I was married. I had never told her I had a wife. There wasn't any way I could think of to tell her that things were escalating at home for me.

I could hear the laughter from the guests in the distance. The distraction was enough for Michonne to instruct me to take off my shoes and find my way down the hall to her bedroom to shower and put on my blue Pajamas. Her hand was out, and I gave her my cell phone to put away.

After a long stare down in the mirror at myself, I could actually see this version of a man who had to accept the hurt and pain along the way. I wasn't alone in this when I was here, in her home, with her.

I checked her medicine cabinet, and she had nothing but Ambien. I took one and drifted off to sleep.

My last memory I could recall was wondering why I never asked the doctor to write me a prescription and then I randomly remembered I _did_ and was denied.


	23. Rick Says I Licked The Spot

Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision."  
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

* * *

It was in the second week, or maybe the third week I got a call from Rosita who was actually surprised that I hadn't fired this one. I told her to stop talking because to jinx would stop my payments. She hung up. Good.

Within a few months I was comfortable around him. Rick had a hard time understanding the difference between cuddling and snuggling.

I was paying for a snuggle, and he was freely giving me cuddle. I had to put a pillow down on his lower half. The next day I showed him that what he left behind on my pillow wasn't what I meant when I told him to Scream into my pillow. He S'cream into my pillow, alright. Rick had me wondering what type of sperm he was working with that seeped through his underwear, pajamas and still stained my fucking pillow. The thought makes my ovaries jump.

He claims that he has a memory of us both on Ambien where I licked the spot and it turned him on that he couldn't help but to _S'cream into my pillow_ again.

I have no memory of this event just like I don't remember giving the Walmart Cashier my Black Card to prove to _their_ Security Guard named Eugene, that I could buy or own everything in the store if I wanted it. I bought everything stocked and on display. What the fuck?

I _want_ to have sex with Rick, but I can't give myself over to him like that-not yet. I have to make him a proposition first and then I would be ready, but he needs to be ready too.

I like that he listens to me. I like that he's there when I wake up from one of nightmares if I don't take the Ambien.

"Michonne. I am here. I am here. It's me, Rick."

"I miss my baby, Rick." I turned to face him.

"What _baby_ , Michonne?"

"The one who died. I can't get over it and I keep seeing him torn to pieces by bears or mountain lions, or bitten by Zombies."

"Michonne, what are you saying to me. Tell me what you want me to know."

"I'm broken in millions and millions of pieces, just like my baby."

"I am here if you want to talk about your baby...What was his name?"

"My peanuts name was Andre and I miss him so much. It hurts. It's fresh and I have no coke and I am out of scripts for it to take it away from my mind. I need this to hurt less." I sobbed in semi-controlled gasps.

My tears caused him to cry. We had the pillow in-between us and he moved it to cuddle with me. I think he showed me that snuggling was over priced and cuddling with someone who cares is Priceless.

Regardless of my rules that he was breaking I loved that he found ways to reach out to me. I felt that Rick genuinely wanted to find me in all my mess of a life.


	24. Flick, Flick, Flick According To Rick

_"Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment...'dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love - which is to transform us.' Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling."_  
 **― bell hooks **

* * *

Michonne didn't understand a lot of times why I stared at her. She was so beautiful to me, and I constantly wanted to be kissed by her. I finally figured out what kind of kissing Michonne wanted at arrival and departure. I tried to control my desire for more, to push boundary lines. A quick peck or a very chaste kiss.

She always initiated the kissing. And then after the fight, I had with Lori, I began to start a peck on Michonne's cheek or her nose or forehead. When I did one of those three things, it would always cause Michonne to pause and consider some private thought before she indulged me in a wonderful lingering kiss.

She was absolutely beautiful, and any morning, whether we were hung-over or not, I thought I had died and gone to heaven to lay eyes on her. This wasn't a job but a privilege to wake up with her, I felt.

It didn't take long for me to realize that this is what she was paying me for. Michonne wanted no one else to sleep with her.

She wanted company, reassurance, and comfort. Michonne enjoyed my company, I gave her reassurance and was there to make everything more comfortable when it was hard or too heavy to endure alone.

I wasn't sure about Michonne having a child until the day I found her in the room that was forbidden in her home to me. The room that I was instructed to never enter or I would be fired. I didn't dare touch the knob, but I heard her sobbing, and I smelled smoke.

My Ambien hadn't kicked in, and I wasn't aware that Michonne was under the hypnotic spell of the drug. She was dressed in her Blue Pajamas that matched my own. I opened the door to find her trying to burn canvases in a room that was like a shrine. There were photographs of Michonne and another one that was in her likeness with whom I deemed was her son Andre.

She couldn't get the lighter to stay lit. Flick. Flick. Flick. Each time the lighter would not produce a flame.

Quickly, I had to act.

I had to move the Art out of the room and into the hallway outside the door. Michonne in a red dress with her back turned. Another, she wore a black dress where she was seated on a white chaise, her legs outstretched, holding on to a very long cigarette the feel was the 1920s or 1930s. Variations of paintings and current ones with what seemed to be before her long dreadlocks. There was a time Michonne was Bald and Proud it said in the painted caption. The way her eyes were captured and those lips...I had to shake myself from getting lost to the effects of the Ambien. And then the Photos of her pregnancy taken with a Polaroid laid scattered all over an artist table as I leaned over it take another large photo down of Michonne of what I assumed was her and Andre. I tried to collect everything as she began to shred, rip, and destroy.

Flick. Flick. Flick. It never lit.


	25. Wind And Flame

"Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain."  
― ** Kahlil Gibran **

* * *

"You have horses here too?"

"Yes, I do," I responded. We were at my home on the River.

This was after the parachute incident. We both felt it would be safer here to start our detox. The middle of nowhere.

"Is there nothing you don't have?"

I eyed Rick. I couldn't help it. What he asked, caused my lips to do more and more of, and it always happened on the right side of my mouth. His natural way about things always caused me to begin to smile _and_ fight it at the same time.

 _Nothing_...

I am so far away from the woman who used to think she had it all. There was a time when I thought I did.

"Do you know how to ride bareback?" I asked Rick.

"I grew up on a farm, Michonne. It was my grandfather's farm before it became my Daddy's. I mean Senior...umm. Well, yes." Rick was flustered.

" _Nothing_ I need to show you or tell you about the horse you are about to ride?" I overlooked his embarrassment.

Rosita's rule was for him to not tell too much about himself. He was breaking those rules slowly I found. What I did know about him, what he leaked made him endearing.

"I have never touched an Arabian horse. Never known a soul personally that owned one and you have four?" Rick marveled.

"This is King Flame." I introduced the horse that I was already on and the one Rick had the reins to, "The one you have is Queen Wind."

I watched the wonder and awe again on Rick's face as he caressed Queen Wind and she seemed to find pleasure in the man who touched her gently from her muzzle, the space between her eyes, her head and along her finely muscled body.

"Queen Wind likes you," I informed Rick.

"She is the most beautiful all Black Beast I have ever laid eyes on."

The word _beast_ caused Queen to Neigh and for me to chuckle.

"She knows she's a horse, but she does not like the word beast. Please refrain, or she will Buck you right off her back when you mount her." I informed Rick.

We rode at a good speed along the path of the River bank. Rick tried to keep pace, but Queen knew that King preferred her a full gallop behind on his left side.

The way Rick adjusted to allow Queen to run along the lines outside of human whims touched me somehow for some reason; he was attuned. He held the reins loosely, and he touched the horse neck to signal the next movement after watching the direction I was going.

Mike was an excellent horseman. We used to ride often together. This was his dream to own and breed. I had a Stableman take a picture of Mike and Andre standing next to the horse stable. Andre was so happy when ever we would take him to ride on the horse positioned in front of his Dad.

Sometimes I can feel Andre when I ride. Sometimes the wind behind is strong enough to push forth a gust where I can sense him close to me, his small hand upon my face when I ride.

The soothing sounds coming from the River and the woods scattered along as the backdrop, I could hear Andre's laughter and his urgency for me to go faster so Daddy couldn't catch me.

They were never going to catch me because Wind knew Flame would never allow it. I rode Flame. Faster, Faster, Faster. I felt I was going to suffocate.

Queen Wind was air. Rick rode Wind with the confidence that she will keep pace with her King. Queen found her place by King's side with just a few gallops. Together we rode, and the horses guided us in our journey for we had no direction but forward and back.

Instead of suffocating, I was able to breathe as the two horses found common ground. I really didn't know it was okay to breathe even when I ached for my baby.

* * *

A/N:

I thank those who have reviewed. I thank those who continue to read but never review. Thank you.

The delays in posting is from re-reading what I have posted and then going back to make chapters more clear and or concise. Enjoy.

...

P.S: The next two chapters will reveal more of a dilemma within the dilemma.

Sidenote: Michonne has yet to have sex with Rick.


	26. Michonne Meets With Rosita

"Strange how complicated we can make things just to avoid showing what we feel!"  
― Erich Maria Remarque, The Night in Lisbon

* * *

"I am surprised that he has lasted this long with you, Michonne."

"I am too."

"6 months. You don't look like you are using." Rosita took in her friend and it was clear Michonne was better, appeared more herself.

"I am not. It wasn't easy by any stretch of the word, but I wasn't going to rehab. I am not a drug addict. I am not, and I refused to be labeled as one when it is pretty much mind over matter."

"You really want another, Baby?"

"I do."

"Does he knows what happened to Mike and Andre?"

"No."

"Do you plan to tell him?"

"If he says yes to this proposition, I will tell him most everything."

"I am going to be the first to say I don't like this, Michonne." Rosita sat at her desk while Michonne sat across the room on a plush sofa made with the finest Italian Leather.

"You are the first because you are the only one that knows what is in the fine print."

"What do you want me to do, Michonne? Do you expect me to ask him for you? Do you want me to ask him to father your future child?" Rosita asked.

"I think it would be best. If Rick says no then you would hear it. If he says he needs to think about it, then you would know and can do the negotiations, and if it is a flat out yes, it could possibly break my heart..."

"You are a very confusing person, Michonne. How much are you willing to pay for this Sperm donor, named Ricardo?"

"His name is Rick, and you know it so stop it."

"He looks like a Ricardo," Rosita shrugged.

"What amount do you think is fair, Rosita."

"I get a cut for this I hope you know, Michonne. I am telling you now. If it is a yes or no. You will pay me. You will pay for this service I have provided to no one but you, Lady."

"10 percent of the overall offer. I will pay. Accepted or Denied. How much?"

"I will start at 500k. if he says no immediately I will gauge where his hesitation lies in the amount that I increase it to and then slowly try to negotiate back downward.


	27. Rick Remembers Pixy Stixs

_"In one moment I was feeling everything and I was feeling nothing."_

― Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures

* * *

I closed my eyes, and I prayed that my phone would vibrate. I closed my eyes to feel, to dream, to be free. I would see her face. I could hear her laughter. Michonne was laughing more and more. She was less the strangely peculiar and more the woman I could feel with, dream with and be free.

High on Ambien, we held up a gas station with Pixy Stixs. Luckily, we were recognized by the same guy that was also the Security Guard at Walmart, Eugene.

Michonne called us the Candy Bandits. He was going to call the police on us, but he hesitated with the slow reveal of Michonne's shiny black card that she pulled out of her wallet. She bought the whole display of Big Kat bars, and we left like we robbed the place. We were dressed in blue matching PJs and slippers. The same outfits we wore to Denny's that night.

There was one ring from the doorbell. The front door was open for my mother to peer inside and she invited herself in, since the screen door was unlocked.

I was relaxed on the sofa and immediately closed my eyes again, pretending I was asleep.

Carl was in his bedroom knocked out from the new medication prescribed to ease his pain and to prolong his life.

"Mother Ella!" Lori was surprised and not happy to see my mother standing in the kitchen entryway with her usual pose of keeping the bible tightly to her left bosom and her other hand on her hip.

"Lori, I know you and I haven't been on the same page from the beginning and-"

"If you are here to see Rick he is over there on the couch most likely playing possum."

"Never wake a sleeping man trying to find rest."

This was a sign that my mother wasn't there, here to see me but Lori. My Mother Ella was going to have words, and to anyone else, put Lori, my wife in her place.

"I promise you I can wake him." Lori offered.

"My words are for you and you only. Now let's sit at the table."

"I mean no disrespect, Mother Ella but I-"

"Yes, you. This is a mess that _you_ created, and no one can be blamed but _you_. You will not blame my son. Richard is doing his best, and if he weren't so cleaved to you, I would have both of you sitting down with Senior Grimes and me so we can think of funeral arrangements."

"Why do you want Carl to die?" The way Lori said it, I knew my Mother was officially on Lori's list of people that she believed wouldn't go the extra mile for our son, _her_ son.

" _Why_ do you insist on killing my son to save his son?"

My mother was ready for battle. Quotes would soon ensue. I breathed deeply and listened intently.

"He's sleeping over there, Mother Ella. He doesn't look like a dying man to me."

"I think you know I never liked you, Lori. I never figured you were right for my Richard. You were spoiled and wanted things your way, and there was a time, it was happening, getting the things to happen your way. This time you are going to regret what you had my son, Richard go out and do. I don't know the details. I pray never to know the details but if Shane has his hands involved then I know it has to be a deal with the same Devil that the Negan character is pledged to."

"No one is losing their soul over this, Mother Ella." Lori reaffirmed her stance.

"But you will lose your husband over this. Have you considered that?"

"What we did last night in our bedroom, I don't think I am losing."

"I've known a plenty men who confessed to lay with their wives but had another woman on their mind."

"Mother Ella-"

"This is such a sensitive matter and I would much appreciate if you consider what I am saying then thinking about how to respond back! He never asked you to do such a thing do you know why? Do you understand why?"

"When I answer will this be your reasoning or quotes from the bible?"

"A woman steps out on her husband whether, with permission or not, it's hard to step back. Going back is hard. Rick never asked you to do such a thing because he didn't want to lose you that way. Not that way."

"Rick isn't alone in this, Mother Ella. He leaves this house and is gone for days to weeks at a time; you don't think that eats me up inside? Don't you think it tears me up? I have no idea why you think that it doesn't." Lori's voice was shaky wrought with genuine despair.

"It can't. If it _did_ the pain of it all would be too great to have _your_ husband walk out the door. He is a feeling man. Richard feels with his heart and you and Carl our that to him. His heart. A wife that is okay with asking her husband to go and do ungodly things had to have _hurt_ him-when he would have never asked that of you. It would hurt him too much to have you go and do that. If you don't understand what I am saying, then he should have told YOU to do it. It takes an unfeeling person to request such a thing of another and instead of slapping him around or wielding some unimaginable force, you use the Love for his son as the weapon to have him go out this door to another. I don't know what type of woman you are but if you were worth a grain of salt and a bottle of holy water you would have said _get_ _behind_ _me_ _demon_ when the idea came up or was introduced."

"What kind of mother would I be not to seek all avenues for Rick, for us, for Carl?" Lori questioned.

"The order of things is God, your husband, then you and then Carl."

"If this were your very own son, Richard Sinclaire Grimes, you are trying to tell me-." Lori was going to ask in disbelief.

"As I am standing here a true believer in God and all his miracles and mysterious ways, you would not have Rick standing here today if that was God's answer for me and Senior Grimes. I would not make a deal with the devil named Negan that promised to give his organ but then changes his mind to do so because he thought he could get money. The money you don't have, I remind you! Money that you now have my son Richard out there selling himself to make ends meet but still it ain't nowhere near the amount that is needed. You handed over 70 grand, 80 grand-Heavens if I know. Scares me to death to think that if you would have told my son to rob a bank if he would have gone and done it!"

"I know you never liked me, Ms. Ella. Based on the length of time, I don't think you will ever like me. One thing for sure I am not losing any sleep over it. My concern is Carl. Carl trumps all order to things-so, I'm sorry. If there is a gray area here, Let me dispel it. You stay away from me. You stay away from my son. You don't look at him. You don't talk to him. From now on, my family is off-limits to you. I know that is the real reason you are here. Carl told me you have been talking about what type of funeral he would want and what kind of songs he wants to have sung and-"

"I will pray for your soul. I will pray for my son and Grandson. I can't agree with you, Lori. I can't. As God is my witness. You are such an ungodly woman. Makes me shudder. I will find my way back home. I walked over here and find myself like a roaring lion. You haven't heard a word I said to YOU!" Mother Ella shouted the last part which meant she was losing the war and needed to regroup. She needed to get prayed up and start up another time on another day.

My mother eyes filled with tears and I can tell she was distraught. I sat up on the couch and sighed. Lori has gone and told my parents details of what I am doing, been doing? Oh my fricking Christ man.

"It makes me really sad to know that this is how you treat my son, Richard. There is nothing gentle or submissive about you."

"I will take you home mother." I stood and grabbed my keys. I was angry, and the way I grabbed my car keys indicated that I was pissed.

"Godly conduct is a more powerful witness than blending with the Ungodly."

I didn't know if my mother was saying that to me or to Lori and I didn't ask for clarification as I walked with her out the door to take her home.

A/N:

Writing Mother Ella in this I am picturing Kathy Bates.


	28. I Have Internally Decided

"What can I expect from myself? My sensation in all their horrible acuity, and a profound awareness of feeling. A sharp mind that only destroys me, and an unusual capacity for dreaming to keep me entertained. A dead will and a reflection that cradles it, like a living child."  
― ** Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet**

* * *

I received two types of news today. I had to make a significant decision that affected everyone I held dear to me.

Carl had less than Three weeks to live, and Lori instantly looked to me with relief when I told her I could get the amount on one condition. She wanted to know what it was and to do it. She didn't care and when I told her what I would need to provide she instantly said no outside of Carl's hospital room.

There was no way I wasn't going to run this by Lori. She was my wife after all. This type of decision affected Carl and us.

Her answer was hell no.

I told Rosita I was still thinking.

* * *

A/N:

Before anyone post a response I would like for you take a moment and ask yourself if you were Lori would you be so eager and wouldn't you want your husband to tell you regardless of the strive in your marriage?

Keep in mind he has never had sex with Michonne. Things to ponder.


	29. He Has THIS Friend

_"The only love that I really believe in is a mother's love for her children."_  
 _ **― Karl Lagerfeld **_

* * *

Rick has been mentioning a friend of his that has a son that may die. The friend has a wife who has pushed the husband to find money to save their son, named Harold.

"Well, what is she doing?" I asked. I stopped cleaning the vegetables while Rick chopped the carrots.

"She who?" He asked.

"Your friend's wife? What is she doing to ensure that her son, their son will get the surgery."

My voice and query brought him back from wherever his mind was taking him lately.

"What do you mean what is she doing?" His tone had a little extra to it. I took notice of it.

"Is she taking on a job? Two Jobs?"

"Why would she do that if she has to take care of the son? The son, Harry is sick and will die, not a snotty nose kid with the stomach flu that will get better in a day or two and go back to school." His tone was terse.

"Oh. Excuse me." I placed more vegetables in front of him to chop.

"I didn't mean to snap at you Michonne," Rick whispered a few seconds later. "I am sorry."

"I am sorry for the friend. I am sorry to hear that he has been put in a dire situation to roam the streets in search of odd jobs. How much did you say he needed?"

"420K grand." I had already given him approximately 80k. This need had to have been 500k. Makes more sense to me. Hey this is a hold up give me 420k dollars all in singles and fives if you got it. Just doesn't make sense. I didn't tell Rick my thoughts. These were just my thoughts in my Al Pacino voice that Rick thinks is a horrible impression.

I was standing on his left. My eyes burrowed a hole on the side of his face. I spied his ring finger, and there were no tan marks. Not even when I had taken his hand when he gave me my Ginger Jar of Coke, and I had made a comment on his rough hands. I didn't want to get pissed off, but I was going to go there freely with him.

"Such an odd amount to think that someone could get that kind of money by taking on what kind of jobs did you say?"

"Odd jobs, Michonne."

"Odd jobs." I repeated and continued, "I think any woman married to a man that could only find employment in the odd jobs industry shouldn't think her husband could magically come up with that kind of money. And the two or three jobs she would need to work, Walmart, Daryl's Automotive, and the Honky Tonk wasn't going to get anywhere close to that amount."

I remembered these places based on random memories of our Ambien induced state of not giving a fuck that we were in our PJs sightseeing in King's County.

"Very Rich coming from you." Rick chopped faster.

"I am Rich, and I would never have a man of mine go out there hustling for money. I wouldn't, but I can't really talk because I killed my husband."

Rick stopped chopping.

"I know what it is like to be unreasonable. I know what it is like to lose a child. I know it from personal experience. It shapes us, or it can destroy us. You have helped me a lot, Rick. You've helped me. You can't stop me from helping, and if you were to ask, it comes with a condition."

"This story was about a friend of mine." Rick turned to me giving me full eye contact before looking away as if he didn't want to spill tears.

"If I weren't paying for you to be here, where would you be? What would you be doing right now? If I weren't paying for this?" I motioned my hand between us.

"I would be home."


	30. We Did What At Walmart?

_"Behind him,across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo."_  
 _― Lois Lowry, The Giver _

* * *

"...see yourself out of my house like Pronto, Motherfucker." Michonne exited the room pissed off that she was being accused of being a junky by a man that was introduced to her by Rick, as his _friend_ named, Shane.

"What is she upset about?" Shane asked. "I _AM_ the _motherfucker_ that came and saved the day. When did you become a druggy, Rick-since that one is in denial?"

"I am not a druggy, and I think it is best you leave."

"As a friend, I can't do that. I can't and I won't."

"She's pissed off because you are intruding on her space. She doesn't _know_ you, Shane. You of all people know you shouldn't be here."

"I was called to get your ass out of the Walmart. I wasn't going to come but when I was told that you were with someone other than your wife in a pair of matching blue PJs in fucking _Kings_ _County_ of all places I scooped you two up before the shit hits the fan. I had Herschel in my damn ear and he's the one that quietly had you two taken out of the jail cells. No record of this event because of Rosita and whom ever that was that is mean as fuck - _that_ just left the room."

"I was sitting in jail?" Rick couldn't recall these events.

"Sleeping in the aisle on a pile of Walmart pillows. Herschel says no crime was committed because Michonne purchased everything in the store."

"Fuck."

"Word has gotten to Lori."

"Shit! Can you not talk about that here? Michonne has ears like a hawk."

"Turn your back, she's outside on the balcony on the phone. She ain't listening to _shit_ I am saying."

"I don't want to talk about it here." Rick refused.

"Lori has become a that, it and officially a Bitch. What's going on Rick? You and Lori fighting to the point she had to pull a knife on you?"

"Things got out of hand. I had never touched Lori." Rick's mind became clouded over with thoughts he didn't want to think about. Brain fog was a bitch too.

"I saw no bruises when Lori finally calmed down. She even stated she was the one that threw things at you causing the cut. Lori said she was so angry she lost herself. I asked her if she was having doubts about the way you are going about getting the money and if so, she needed to speak up and accept things for the way it might play out for Carl. I feel sorry about it. I feel like _if_ I didn't help you and Lori, I would have been party to allowing Carl to die too. I made him a promise to show him how to catch frogs. He said he would give most anything to see his mother's face trying to eat one. I told him he's going to need to be prepared for the day that frog legs are the only thing on the menu. Carl laughed at that. He asked me if I have ever watched, The Walking Dead. I gave him a look and asked him how would a man of my caliber have time to watch, The Walking Dead. He told me if I had time to visit him then I have time to watch. I watched it with him. I watched the whole season while you were gone, Rick. While you were here doing what you need to do to make sure he can see the final season. I was there with Lori, trying to make sure there wasn't anything she needed while you are trying to make away. Find a way through all this. I have to remind her sometimes I am not her Superman. I see it in her eyes. I feel it in her voice. The words she chooses to express for my ears to hear. It makes me sad that she can't see that this isn't you." Shane points to his chest before he continued.

"I am not a version of you. I am warning you now that your wife ain't the type to be left alone. She is not like these women who choose not to be in a relationship. Lori is not the type that can do it on her own, survive on her own. In her mind, she wants someone like _me_ that can swoop in and save the day. Keep her safe, Carl safe. Maybe there is a version of you that existed in me, and if he did or was, I never recognized him. I'm not trying to save the Lori's of the world. I am here and there to help you. I am not a knight in shining armor. I am there because you are _my_ _friend_. You have always been my friend. And do you want to know the crazy thing about women-they warp the shit that the guy down the street does and make it some romantic fantasy. Crazier shit then the Harlequin romance crap they buy. All women want something in exchange whether they realize their motives or not. No one is giving the shit away for free. There is no charitable exchange, my friend-not at this level. You give what is desired, and hopefully, you can find some pleasure in doing so. I know this goes against everything you stand for and if you walk away from it, I understand why you did, and if you don't, I can see why you didn't."

Rick felt the sincerity and it made him more wrought with despair.

"I am more lost than I have ever been in my life. I am _here_ , and I forget all my worries. I forget that I am just a Handy Man with a sick son that I can't save if I weren't _here_ with _her_ the way that I am _with_ _her_. I have a mission. I have a reason for doing this, and then when I step inside her house, into her life, everything falls to the wayside. Everything. Lori and Carl were my Everything. My heart and my soul. I could never imagine _this_ for myself. This being all mine _if_ I wanted it to be and as I know, it _could_ _be_ with _Michonne_. I was unprepared for this level, and in the process, I let down my guard and lost what I thought was my semblance of life, what was created for me-not designed by me."

This interaction made the two men uncomfortable, one fought back the tears and the other accepted them.

"So you are going to go through with her request?" Shane asked surprised.

"What request?"

"The reason she has you here?"

Shane realized immediately that Rick didn't know. Rick didn't know that he was selected to be a sperm donor in exchange for whatever amount he negotiated.

* * *

A/N:

Reminder...Puzzle pieces. Puzzle pieces. This could be considered Layering. Take as a layer or a piece that will eventually snap into place if it hasn't already. However you decide.

Making corrections to this as I type. Bear with me...ughhh


	31. How Much Does All This Cost?

"The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it..."  
― Nicholas Sparks, At First Sight

* * *

"I can't sleep, Michonne."

"I can't either, Rick." Michonne whispered as if they could be overheard. It was just them feeling more in sync with each other on this night as if it were any other night.

"What are you thinking about?" Rick whispered back as if they were conspiring. He would be a willing accomplice.

"I am thinking about the future. What are you thinking about?" Michonne had asked Rick who was lying on his back for she was also staring up at the ceiling in her dimly lit bedroom inside her secondary home located in Atlanta.

"Right here and now is what I am thinking about. Tell me about the future." Rick turned his attention from the ceiling to Michonne who turned her face to his as they lay on top of the covers dressed in blue matching Pajamas holding hands.

"You will think I am crazy if I told you," Michonne said shyly.

The act alone endeared Michonne to Rick.

"I already think that you are crazy. Tell me." Rick half smiled.

"You make me wonder about tomorrow and tomorrow, and-"

"What? Tomorrow and tomorrow. This is coming from the one that had an issue with the Nothing?"

"Nothing was an odd choice somehow, Rick. I feel like I have gone from Nothing to Something now. I'll almost give anything to keep it. It could be worth it all, all that I have to never have the feeling of Nothing ever again. I would happily pay the price if I knew how much?"

"Ambien?" Rick questioned where this was coming from, what Michonne was sharing was it the residuals of the controlled substance or was it coming from a sober place.

"Think it's the marijuana. I am very relaxed. I am not sleepy."

"Do we need to stop that too?" Rick wondered aloud.

"Another day. Not tonight." Michonne snorted trying to fight a giggle.

"Did you just snort?" Rick chuckled.

"Yes."

They both fell into the thrill of amusement of one another's laughter.

"Tell me what you were thinking about here and now."

"I was thinking about you. I was thinking about how I would do this freely with you. Be here with you like I am. I've looked up the word Bliss the other day. The word you told me to look up when you said my description wasn't quite right based on what your thoughts were about it. I am feeling it now, Michonne. Right now. I see nothing else, I feel nothing else more intensely, I know of no other way to achieve it or experience it, your scent, your laughter, your kisses where I can taste you."

Michonne took her free hand and caressed the side of his face. She found that she loved the unshaven look much better compared to the unshaven. His eyes were peering in to hers.

"There you go looking at me like that. How much is this costing me? How much of what you are sharing with me is motivated by what I am willing to pay to _feel_ _you_ next to me in the night, see you the first thing in the morning? To hear you when you've been expressly told not to talk to me or when you kiss me back, the way you kiss me back? I feel so much when I smell your showered body when you come to bed with me. How much am I am willing to pay to keep this-scares me, especially knowing now you are prepared to give it to me freely."

Michonne had spoken from her heart at that very moment, and Rick was receptive with no hesitation in wanting to hear her confirm what has happened to her to him to them both.

"What's happening, Michonne?" Rick's heart raced.

Michonne didn't answer. She had the answer to her riddle. Reflecting on it brought her nowhere closer to having peace with it.

Paying for something that someone, the right someone would give freely...what was she, he risking in this exchange if it didn't play out just right?

* * *

A/N:

Safe to go back to We Did What Walmart? I made the correction for clarity. It was a mess.


	32. Rosita Has His Answer

_"One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too."_  
 _ **― Friedrich Nietzsche**_

* * *

"He says he has to think about it, Michonne." Rosita went straight to it.

Michonne sat back in her Blue Maserati listening to Rosita give her the news. She was relieved that her offer wasn't immediately accepted nor was it denied. He was considering all sides to the equation. A child with her would not replace his own if he were _indeed_ the Friend in the story he told. She was tingling all over and she felt as if she needed to throw up from the intense jitters she was experiencing. Thirst. She found herself very thirsty as of late.

Rosita continued, "I am really unhappy about this choice. I know you don't give a damn about my thoughts, but I am going to tell it to you straight, Chica. My services are not, was not designed for how you manipulated it. My services were for women who wanted to take charge of their lives and use men the way they use us. We aren't ignorant of their intentions and because of our wealth we are prone to have nothing but users. We can't be fooled into the Love shtick. We have control to keep it light. No attachments. My services are not meant for a fucking love connection." Rosita spoke angrily into the receiver.

"What are you going on about? You are killing my natural high."

"You have spent too much damn time with him. Who gives a shit about the details of his character? If you were so concerned about who you were going to breed with you should have used another service like Christian love dot com. I can't guarantee what skeletons he's hiding. He was referred to me by a guy that is very popular with my Clientele, and there was a sense of urgency about it, and now that I reflect on it I should have thrown him out on his ass. I don't even know if Rick is his real name or alias, Michonne. He could actually be a Ricardo for all we know."

"All that to say what?" Michonne was losing her patience.

"Don't get pissed off with me if he isn't who he says he is. I did not vet his story or any story about him-because he was a _referral_. I know he was _STD_ _free_ at the time he started and _STD_ _free_ when he was sent _your_ way."

"I haven't had sex with him."

"Doesn't matter if you did or didn't. He's in love with you."

"Rosita-" Michonne began to deny what she wasn't really certain of, nor had she ever heard Rick tell her he was in love with her.

"It was all over his damn face. It was all in what he didn't say, and the one thing he did ask or what he wanted you to know was-."

"What does he want?" Michonne voice betrayed her. Her voice betrayed her displaying her eagerness to know more about the man from another person's perspective."

"What _you_ _want_ but with his own conditions."


	33. Two Fools

_"I don't like hope very much. In fact, I hate it. It's the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard. It's bad news. The worst. It's sharp sticks and cherry bombs. When hope shows up, it's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt."_  
 _―_ _Jennifer Donnelly_ _,_ _Revolution_

* * *

Carl was getting worst. Worst than better. Lori wouldn't look at me. She focused on everyone that was holding vigil over Carl in the waiting room of the hospital.

My father, Senior Grimes noticed the dynamics between Lori and myself. We were drifting farther and further apart in how we moved around the room and in our ideas and motivations.

"I went and visited that bastard. Negan isn't budging from the dollar amount, and you two have been paying him like fools. Two fools. He's not giving back the money you have given him. Says it was for him as a gift and he thanks you very much paying him to consider giving his organ to your son but he respectably decline."

"Fuck."

"You can't try and make a deal with the devil when you don't know the price you will be paying. There's never a fair arrangement when you do it." Senior Grimes shook his head as we sat in the cafeteria of the hospital.

"Lori-"

"I don't want to hear about Lori. Your mother and I don't give two shits about Lori. You should have stood your ground, Son. I taught you better, and your mother has as well. We don't go against God's divine plan for our lives and the lives of others. What will be will. God's Will." Senior Grimes declared.

Tears. Tears that I haven't shed in a long time were coming forth and falling. I had no control over what was happening. It was out of my hands as it has always been. I am just a man as I stared down at the palm of my hands. Rough hands, I could hear her voice even then when I needed to be with her the most I felt again acutely alone.

"Now listen to me, son. We need to start thinking about funeral arrangements..."


	34. I Have Five

_"There is an emotional promiscuity we've noticed among many good young men and women. The young man understands something of the journey of the heart. He wants to talk, to "share the journey." The woman is grateful to be pursued, she opens up. They share the intimacies of their lives - their wounds, their walks with God. But he never commits. He enjoys her... then leaves. And she wonders, What did I do wrong? She failed to see his passivity. He really did not ever commit or offer assurances that he would. Like Willoughby to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility._

 _Be careful you do not offer too much of yourself to a man until you have good, solid evidence that he is a strong man willing to commit. Look at his track record with other women. Is there anything to be concerned about there? If so, bring it up. Also, does he have any close male friends - and what are they like as men? Can he hold down a job? Is he walking with God in a real and intimate way? Is he facing the wounds of his own life, and is he also demonstrating a desire to repent of Adam's passivity and/or violence? Is he headed somewhere with his life? A lot of questions, but your heart is a treasure, and we want you to offer it only to a man who is worthy and ready to handle it well."_  
 ** _― Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul_**

* * *

This was surprisingly his first-time ever. Rick had never known where his friend, Shane actually lived until he parked his Toyota Tercel inside of the parking garage of some exclusive condominium community where one would have to punch a series of numbers for entry.

"What are you going to do?" Shane handed his friend a bottled beer from his stainless steel refrigerator.

Rick took in the fancy bachelor pad as he sat on the kitchen counter height bar stools. It was decorated with nothing but a man in mind. Masculine in every detail.

"Doesn't matter what I am going to do. Why didn't you tell me? Why did you conveniently leave out that part?" Rick asked his friend.

"If I had told you everything would you have taken it? Would you? How was I to know the stipulations weren't mentioned to you in the beginning. How? Every time I was selected it was told to me what was requested. How was I to know you were being lured in to believing there was someone that was going to rescue you without wanting something in return?"

"How many, Shane?"

"Five. I have five kids with women who don't want me around them. I have five kids I have never set eyes upon."

Rick was silent. Everything that was felt was then and all at once. He was angry as he sorted through his thoughts of what he wanted to say next, what he wanted to reveal.

"Is that what you accepted? You were okay with that?" Rick finally asked as if the answer really mattered at that point.

"My situation is nothing like your situation, Rick. I didn't get to know these women as intimately as you got to know the one you have been with. That in of itself makes it different. I didn't have the same set of factors that you have when I started out in these shoes I wear. Yes, it was what _I_ agreed to. I have learned to live with it, and if you make the decision, you will have to learn to live with it too."  
...


	35. GOD Is the True Houdini

_"Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark."_  
 _― Bryce Courtenay _

* * *

We had a surprising deposit to our account. The largest amount yet.

Money that was wired by Rosita to me. Lori told me it was for 100k. We had just given away money to Negan to prove to him that we were serious about everything including coming up with the money, and _now_ -we didn't have to give him another dime. I had no idea what or where Lori's mind was on what to do with the money and when I mentioned giving it back since we didn't need it, Lori gave me a look that if she could slap me right there, she would have but we had my parents there and her parents. Funeral Arrangements.

Carl's doctor escorted a man and a woman over to our table in the hospital cafeteria and introduced themselves as Pete and Denise to us, to the group and Lori, and I told them it was okay to talk with all the family members in attendance.

"This is highly unorthodox and experimental at best." Pete summed up what he was presenting to us who listened on with very little understanding of the procedure and or process.

Denise offered her tone hopeful, "This can give, Carl a chance."

Senior Grimes scoffed, "This family is done playing a game of chance. What are the damn odds this will work for my Grandson is what we want to know!"

"Well, sir-"

Mother Ella interrupted to ask, "What is it again that you plan to do when Carl needs an Organ and the one damn person who has it won't give it?"

Pete began, "We have been harvesting organs, human organs, similar in every way to a human. What we have found so far-"

Mother Ella's asked, "Harvesting them where? In a pumpkin patch?"

"We can duplicate Carl's genetic makeup that is based on his very rare situation and create the same organ he needs that is harvested in a Pig that-"

"In the name of God WHO IS the only true Houdini, did she just say, Pigs, Senior Grimes?" Mother Ella looked to my father Senior Grimes for clarity.

Charles, Lori's Father, spoke up to bring some semblance of rational thinking, "Don't we all want Carl to have a chance?"

"A pig? What pray tell are you putting inside of my Grandbaby that has anything to do with a pig when we Grimes don't eat PIG?" Mother Ella demanded to know.

"Could you allow the doctors to fully express their thoughts?"

Lori's mother, Miriam was losing patience with the general rude antics of my Mother Ella.

"We are going to take the organ from the best donor pig and place it inside of Carl." Pete said simply after glancing at Denise to see if she wanted to summarize their actions or the end result of their actions.

"Sweet Baby Jesus." Mother Ella lost consciousness and fell against her husband's shoulder.

"Should we check on-" All three doctors were concerned about Mother Ella until Senior Grime waved his hands.

"Pay Mother no never mind. She will come to when you go away from here talking about swine."

The experiment would just so happen to cost us 90k. Lori eagerly signed on the dotted line. I too was convinced to do so.

I want Carl to have a chance. A chance.

* * *

A/N: I have one more chapter to post and then I will allow this story to marinate. All the twist and turns. The nuances. I will come back to this in less than 24 hours after I post Ambien Sex. Thank you to those who are following this story. Thank you to those who like and follow this story!


	36. Ambien Sex

"Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another: Why can't you see who I truly am?"  
― Shannon L. Alder

* * *

We were told that Carl was down to a few days. It was just Lori and me in the waiting room. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

My wife, Lori was so tired because she rested her head on my shoulders as we waited. Her breathing indicated that she was sleeping. She had been fighting it, and she finally allowed herself to doze.

I turned on my phone and started going through photos of Carl and Lori. Emotions again began to re-emerge. I had a few videos of birthdays, but I noticed I had randomly dated videos as well. I pressed play...

Heavy breathing. Camera. My phone's camera was out of focus. This was a video taken on my phone? What?

 _Mmmm... Yes... Oh..._ _Yes._ Were the sounds, repeated and it wasn't singular.

 _"Don't stop, Michonne. Yes. Oh... Yes."_

 _"You like this don't you, Rick?"_

 _"Yes, Mmmichonne. Ahhh. Right there, I wan-"_ I was in utter shock. I had no memory of this, and I quickly turned it off.

There were more video's older and newer than the first one. I was transfixed and in utter awe. I pressed play, and it was clear as day, that on a random day Michonne and I were having sex in her bed and possibly other parts of her home in Atlanta and in her main home on the River based on the décor.

My heart pounded as my hand pressed a different video and another like the fool I was to review this and that with Lori, _Right_ _there_! My heart thuds and bang against my chest violently, rapidly with no sign of calming. My blood pressure. My ears. I went cold and broke into a sweat.

Michonne was staring into my phone _**while**_ she was holding _her_ phone to film my expressions

 _"What are you doing, Rick? What are the results? Check it."_ Michonne instructed. She was impatient.

 _"You are so beautiful, Michonne."_

 _"I am going to take away your Ambien for tomorrow if you don't tell me, mister."_

We stopped taking the Ambien because we couldn't remember shit. Walmart, Pixy Stixs at the Gas Station, Denny's and now proof that we have been having sex? Good sex that I _can't_ fucking remember?

 _"You are going to have my baby, Michonne."_ I declared in the video. It was _my_ voice. It _was_ me. I just don't remember it.

"Is that a statement from you or the Results, Rick?"

 _"From me. The results just confirmed my statement as fact!"_ The expression on Michonne's face. The tears that filled her eyes. She was trying to hold it back but she was happy. Happy and she leaned closer and I leaned in closer and we began to kiss but my phone had fallen to the bed based on the filming of the ceiling. House on the River.

Immediately I was torn from one reality to another that began slapping me, punching me in my face, knocking the phone out of my hand where the screen shattered on the floor.

Hospital Security had to be called...


	37. It Is The Sunrise My Rising Son

_"There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world."_  
 _―_ _Terry Pratchett_ _,_ _A Hat Full of Sky_

* * *

Dawn

 _Wake up, Mommy_.

"Hey, peanut. What time is it?"

 _Time for the Rising Sun! Let's watch. Come on Mommy._

"Okay, little man how many times must I tell you it is the sunrise?"

 _Come on Mommy! Come! We have to hurry. Hurry, Mommy!_

I would get up. Not really wanting to leave the dream state that I was in. My husband Mike always slept undisturbed it seemed, but he opened one eye to peer at me. The look that he was happy it was my turn to watch the Rising Sun. _My_ _turn_.

He closed that one _eye_ after I let out a breath and inhaled. His other eye buried into the pillow along with most of his face.

Mike. His scent. The beautiful laugh lines on his face the curve of his lips. His jaw and the size of his chin. The morning stubble that stood sparse like the birth of a plant that has just taken root, ready to grow because the sun shone just so to induce it from its slumber or the Gardner failed to rake, or the man has yet to-shave. Mike slept on. I loved to bite him there. He loved for me to bite him-there and there and there...

 _Mommy come. Come, Mommy._

Off the bedroom was our balcony. Large enough for a small bistro table and two chairs. Italy. I remembered that time we spent, Mike and I lounging taking in the detail of the architecture there. Mike's potential was unleashed...There was no stopping him. He was _the_ man. _My_ man.

So many thoughts. Memories blending into glimpses of moments where I could almost feel, taste, smell, see, hear. I yearn for him still. The dawn is coming.

I couldn't sleep anyway. I had to get up. I had to, or I would lose sight of the world and how it awakens with the brightest hues of orange and red as _he_ still lies in my bed.

I sometimes wondered then and now if those fluffy mist of air with burst of heat is actually the fog above the trees or were they shallow low lying clouds waiting for the rising sun to break them apart?

They way he would splay his arms out to express just how big, just how Gigantic, just how...

If it was fog or clouds were they only there to prevent the Sunrise or to showcase the event like the parting of my window curtains?

A back drop with no real meaning until life touches you in such a way you notice the smallest things, trivial at best. Most times the clouds would give way, the fog would creep back or tried to hide on the other side of the sky that was still dark, still bleak. Dawn broke.

My head was literally in the clouds it seems because for a moment I didn't recognize the voice behind me, the heat from his breath that caressed my neck. The warmth of his embrace from behind caused me to remember I should have grabbed my white terry cloth robe from the other side of the bed where it lay draped over an armchair.

His body close. He wanted to connect with me. I felt his sincere desire to bond with me, and I couldn't help but to want to-with him. His eyes were so blue that when he said he was sorry, genuine tears spilled when my eyes were dry from crying until he spoke as if we had a shared pain or a pain he could imagine and it was imminent.

"No one should experience the death of a child. No one. If at some point we found ourselves walking in the same shoes at least we know we aren't alone in the pain of it all. I want to believe that is the consolation."

Words spoke to me in the middle of the night when I needed them the most.

The collective, _we_ , parent to parent. I knew then he must be a man with a child that he loved just as dearly as I had loved my own.

"Come back to bed, Michonne." He whispered.

"I can't. I am going to miss the rising sun."

"Is this going to be part of our routine? I am still not sleeping without the Ambien too."

"If you keep talking to me during this time, I will add it to the list." I threatened.

"What are you thinking about? For the record, I am not _talking_ to you, I am inquiring of you. Share with me. Please."

In this state of mind, I had no words to assist me in sharing what I was thinking or what I was feeling. It's an eery feeling to be a part of all this. Every particle every tiny thing and yet I sometimes, often felt an acute loneliness where a sense of intense grief would drive me into isolation at any moment, but it was pushed away. The more desirable option was standing close with his chin resting on my shoulder. His beard was growing in nicely and loved the way it felt against my skin.

 _This_ use to be uncomfortable. _This_ use to hurt. Talking about it helped more than I thought I could allow it too.

He didn't feign sympathy. It was genuine. The compassion that came with a desire to help while Empathy is the preferred stance of most. For most. Even family preferred it that way too.

This type of experience had to have touched one, personally for it to begin to have relevance, even empathy became an insult. Who would desire to walk in my Jimmy Choo's when the very sentence starts out with I...I. AM. NOT. YOU.

You don't want to see what I saw when making funeral arrangements, hear how I wailed, smell my son's shirts that are still in his hamper, How I long to feel his hugs and kisses, taste his ice cream because he insists his flavor is better than chocolate.

 _I am so sorry to see you like-_

 _I am so sorry to hear that-_

 _I am so sorry this-_

 _I am so sorry that-_

 _My condolences..._

Condolences were bullshit. Most of it all started in first-person, and it came with no desire to help. The _So, So, So!_ I understand that no one knew how to help and they hid behind Empathy because the word wasn't designed to help but help oneself if they ever wore the same shoes they could reference you-the bereft.

It was only then I realized I still had _him_. He was still with me watching, eagerly leading me in the mornings whether I was receptive or not. The mornings when I, _he_ , _we_ were at the Home on the river.

It began to show its brilliant rays... These were the things that I remembered. These were my treasures I couldn't just randomly share for these were my pearls I refused to cast about aimlessly. I clutched them, I cradled them and kept the buried deep inside. Then I met Rick. For the price of a pearl in my string of many I placed in his open rough hands, I shared or began to share...The rising sun

* * *

A/N:

It was presented to me that possibly many readers of this story may be unaware of the effects of Ambien also known as Zolpidem. It is a hypnotic and is hard to get a prescription for it because it can cause you to do the craziest things when you should have your butt in bed sleeping. Most things I show have relevance with the random way it is displayed.

Next Chapter after I make sure this shows clarity or as much as possible.


	38. Breakfast Club At Dennys

_"We are all pretty bizarre._  
 _Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all."_  
 _― The Breakfast Club _

* * *

"What in the hell are you doing Michonne?" Rick asked as Michonne pulled out four Pixy Stixs from her purse.

She had already had the waitress giving them both steely stares. They were high. High on Ambien sitting in Denny's Restaurant at 1 am. The waitress thought the order was the oddest she experienced yet so far. 4 slices of bread. White. Not toasted. Two Cokes.

When their order arrived Michonne gave the waitress a look to walk away, and Tara left the two in the booth with their untoasted plain white bread.

Rick looked between his slices and between Michonne's like something was going to magically appear.

"A man can't survive on bread alone." Rick stated flatly.

"That's why I have this, Baby." Michonne pulls out cereal that was poured into a plastic Ziplock bag. Captain Crunch.

She sprinkled the Pixie stick on the bread just like so. She tossed the other two to Rick so he could stop staring even though they had an audience. The few people in the restaurant including the two waitress looked on at the twosome in the booth. Michonne then placed a heaping pile of Captain Crunch, smashed and closed the sandwich.

Rick mimicked her actions, realizing this was from her Obsession with the Breakfast club.

To Rick, Michonne was confirming that she was the nutty girl on the movie but for Michonne she wanted to know what in the hell does it taste like. All eyes and mouths were opened in amazement in what they considered possible two Fresh Start Heroin users.

Michonne took a bite, and Rick took a bite, and they chewed and found it very sweet, too sweet, and the texture and consistency unnerving. They both had enough etiquette to spit in their napkin and call the same waitress over to provide them with two cheeseburgers and fries.

Michonne hadn't noticed Herschel nor the other officer that was watching them. A spectacle. Sheriff Herschel knew them both, and he wondered what in the hell would bring those two together dressed in matching blue pajamas?


	39. Waiting For Rick

_"I had someone once who made every day mean something._  
 _And now…. I am lost…._  
 _And nothing means anything anymore."_  
 _― Ranata Suzuki _

* * *

My life.

I hadn't heard from Rick, and I wanted to know what were his conditions. Rosita said that she had told Rick that I gave him expressed permission to come to my home if and when he wanted to discuss _his_ conditions regarding having a child together.

I felt lonely. I was insecure and the more apart we _were_ , the more I began to realize I wasn't going to function properly without Rick. Not in the ordinary sense in which I was doing right now. Andre's Birthday was in a couple of weeks...

My doorbell rang unexpectedly, my hopes were dashed when I answered to find my friends on the other side waiting to barge into my life.

"We are here, and we have food and wine!" Sasha exclaimed.

"Who said the party was over here?" I asked dismayed by their presence.

"I did." Andrea sashayed her way into my home right behind her was Sasha and Rosita who stopped as if she was a police dog that could sniff drugs.

"Are you pregnant?" Rosita asked me.

"No. I am not pregnant." I denied. I thought it was odd for her to ask me.

Rosita stood inside my home slipping off her shoes like the rest of my friends knew to do, and she insisted going down a very absurd route, "Doesn't Michonne look different?"

Sasha and Andrea took a long look and made their assessment.

"You do look like you've gained a little weight." Sasha offered.

"I've been spooning with Ben and Jerry for a while now," I replied. I had my arms folded across my chest.

"Ohhh, Michonne you are so kinky! Two guys? Really?" Sasha squealed she wanted details.

Andrea replied to Sasha, "Pipe down, Michonne is referring to ice cream." And then to me, "You do look different Michonne. I wouldn't say you have gained weight, but you have a glow about you."

Sasha began placing the food on the coffee table as we all stepped into my living room.

"I would need to have had sex or in-vitro, and since I have not done either yet, I am not pregnant!"

"What happened to the hired dick?"

"His name is Rick, and I have not had sex with him. I use him for other things. Not for sex."

"Do you have any pictures of him?"

"My phone."

I had unlocked my phone and found a picture of Rick that Rosita had sent showing him clean shaven and bearded. The phone had only gone from Andrea and Sasha who both semi- remembered him in the ill fitted suit sitting with us in the VIP section. They were too, Stoned out of their minds.

My mind was on the smell of the food. The odor was off putting, and my stomach began to churn, and I began salivating more. Chinese Take out. The smell of fish and all things Asian.

"You have more pictures of him on your phone." I forgot how nosey Sasha could be. She didn't know how to stay in her lane. The look on her face had me curious watching her bite her lower lip.

"I do?" I was surprised by this information. I was only aware of the photo that Rosita sent.

"Damn Michonne!" Sasha exclaimed, eyes wide.

This had got Andrea and Rosita's attention, and then I heard an _Oohhh, yeah baby, Do it to me like that baby_...It was my voice, cooing and moaning.

 _What the frick_?

I had to go and throw up.


	40. Where Was I?

_"Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else."_  
 **― Ayn Rand **

* * *

The first thing I did was get my screen replaced to my phone. I sat in my car unable to wait to replay events that would have escaped me forever. Mere glimpses of what we did, had done. I became obsessed with watching and rewatching, clip after clip.

The length of scenes was random at best. There were ones that were just 4 seconds and only three that were closest to a minute while one was full-length porn until I could only assume my battery died while filming. I never leave home without my phone fully charged.

The visual and the sounds haunted me from the random moving portraits of what I could not remember but firmly believed it was genuine and good sex. My body ached. Our moans and grunts vibrated and reverberated in the silence of my vehicle from each clip in succession.

 _Damn, Michonne._

 _Yes..._

 _I want this._

 _I..._

 _You make me._

 _Please, more._

 _Put it on the list tomorrow..._

 _Temporary removal, because you never said I couldn't remove things from the list._

 _You know you want this._

 _I like sniffing your panties..._

 _I want this._

 _Michonne. Onne. Onne. Onne._

 _I am in love with you..._

I was startled from my thoughts in front of 'We Fix all Phone Repair Shop' when I heard the tap tap tap on my driver side window. I rolled down my window.

"Hey, Rick! How the hell you get a dent like that?" Daryl asked. He was standing outside my car door, and I began to wonder how much he was able to see of what I was watching or exactly how long he was peering in at me sitting mesmerized by the woman on my phone.

"I have a dent?" I questioned. I made no move to get out my car to check even though Daryl stepped aside in anticipation that I would want to get out and see for myself.

"Yeah. On the passenger side. You've been side-swiped?" Daryl asked me.

I had no recall. I didn't usually drive the Tercel. Michonne had it on her list to never show up to her place in it. I had to leave it parked and a driver would meet me at whatever place I had designated a safe enough place to park. _Why?_

One look at the inside of the passenger door had every indication that I had been in some type of accident or collision based on the indentation. _How had I not noticed this?_

"Come by the shop when you can so I can see if I can fix it or install a new door."

"Well-" I began to decline the offer.

"The _least_ I can do- _plus_ you and your lady friend beat me and my brother Merle fair and square at cards. The _least_ I can do, you know? Besides, that thing you got going on at home with Carl, I am sorry I couldn't do more to help. I gave a donation and even got tested. I _wish_ I was a match."


	41. A Call

_"If one wanted to depict the whole thing graphically, every episode, with its climax, would require a three-dimensional, or, rather, no model: every experience is unrepeatable. What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space."_  
 _ **― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler**_

* * *

The first thing Michonne did when she was able to get them, her friends out of her home, she went straight to her phone and watched, rewatched every clip. She found herself preoccupied with events that have, could have escaped her forever if it wasn't for the baby growing inside.

 _Rick._

 _This._

 _More._

 _I want you._

 _Yes._

 _Don't stop._

 _I removed it from the list temporarily..._

 _You are a naughty boy._

 _Stop that tickles, okay, okay-ooh yes._

 _Take my panties off your head, Rick._

 _Right there._

 _Yes._

 _Mmmm._

 _I'm in love with you too._

A call.

Her phone had vibrated in her hand startling Michonne back to the stark reality of life. She was alone and still waiting.


	42. He Was Thinking Of Her

_"Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god. "_  
 _ **―** _**_Dark Jar Tin Zoo_ _,_ _Love Quotes for the Ages. Specifically Ages 19-91._**

* * *

Lori never connected the dots at the beginning or the middle. Sex with her husband was different. Different in a good way.

The way that Rick touched her, the way that he kissed her. It had been so long since they had connected in that way, and with the diagnosis grim, she needed her husband to hold her, to console her.

She turned her mind off during those times. She wanted to feel, not think. The pleasure of having some of her frustrations released, even if it were just a few, felt better than having everything just bottled up inside.

He had said he would make away. Rick had said he would give it a try. Lori was relieved and ecstatic that Carl would live. Carl, her baby, will have a chance. A chance was all that Lori wanted for Carl, and if she could give her life in exchange, she would have gladly done so. No doubt.

Shane had said there were women, who weren't looking for sex. Some women wanted just companionship without the intimacies of sex. Lori wasn't aware that Shane was bullshitting her.

She wanted to believe that what he said was true, that her husband Rick would most likely be set up with women who were lonely and wanted a man on their arms for functions or show. Lori believed it. She had too.

The words had escaped her before she knew they were said and fell upon Rick who was standing there before her like he was a whipped dog. Defeated.

The shit that pissed her off the most was that he took it upon himself to have her sit down like he was the one designated to tell her that Carl was going to die.

Why? Why would our son die if you are doing all that you can to ensure that he doesn't?

Lori didn't want to hear anything that her husband tried to tell her after he told her he was essentially fired. Fired?

Lori was livid. She shut herself off from him at that point. Accused him of killing Carl, not realizing she was killing Rick and their marriage.

The night he came home in the suit. A suit that she didn't recognize because he only owned one and it was for Weddings and Funerals. This suit fit him in such a way Lori almost didn't recognize the man who stood before her as she lay in their bed wondering if he was ever going to come home.

It was odd to see the gold chain with an M dangling from his neck when he had crawled into bed with her after removing his shoes and pants. That night he seemed dazed or high, but Lori knew that was probably the result of having to drink and appear social, an extrovert Rick wasn't in the least.

"Onne. Onne. Onne." Rick had grunted and moaned.

To her sounded like own. Own?

"Yes, you own this, Rick." Lori wanted to participate vocally in this unusual way he possessed her body, demonstrating that he was in control of the power he exerted.

His thrust was erratic, and the way he plunged into her depths with his eyes closed his face strained elevated her state of arousal. Concentration.

The sex between them had been scarce and far in between that Lori found that she was close. Very close. It was abnormal to have an orgasm this way. The way he was bringing one to her in the missionary position had her gasping for air.

His need was palpable. Lori could feel it in his kisses, taste it from the alcohol and fumes of something he smoked, hear it from how he called out Own, from the way Rick gazed down at her and the smell from his pores as he oozed pheromones that she hadn't felt intoxicated by in a very long time.

She was going to have one of the biggest releases she'd ever had, and she felt it increase and tingle around her flat belly and along the outer edges of her womanhood. Rick was giving her one that had her crescendoing into a duet of moans, grunts and screams _if_ she wasn't too self-conscious that they were going to be overheard by Carl who could be anywhere in the house for the walls were thin, and the bed squeaked loudly.

Lori couldn't take her eyes off the man who's body was shuddering, and it wasn't from the release that he too experienced seconds ago, he was crying. Tears. Tears that dropped onto her forehead, eyes, cheek, neck, and shoulder where he eventually buried his face and wept.

* * *

A/N:

I want to take time out to thank everyone for reading and following along and finding enjoyment in this story of many. I also want to thank the anonymous review who appreciated how I sometimes portray Lori in these stories.

I appreciate everyone. Thank you~


	43. Ambien Produced A Baby

_"Love Just Happens"_

 _Love just happens_  
 _When you are not looking for it,_  
 _Not paying attention,_  
 _Unaware._  
 _You could miss it the first few times,_  
 _But then, unexpectedly,_  
 _Somehow this invisible magnetic energy_  
 _Pulls you and another person together._  
 _And you feel this beautiful magic,_  
 _Like a gravitational force -_  
 _As if the moon were kissing the sun._  
 _And their name,_  
 _Becomes the most hypnotic name_  
 _And you die to see their eyes_  
 _When you open yours_  
 _Every time._

 _Love just happens_  
 _When you least expect it_  
 _At any location_  
 _At any time._  
 _It never announces its arrival_  
 _But when it does find you_  
 _Its warmth is so strong_  
 _It may frighten you_  
 _You could close your eyes and feel it_  
 _And feel them_  
 _No matter where you are_  
 _Or they are_  
 _Every time._

 _Love just happens_  
 _And it happens to everybody._  
 _But some people have their sensors off,_  
 _Or hide from it,_  
 _Or constantly look for it._  
 _Just don't think about it._  
 _Open your heart and it will find you._  
 _It always does._  
 _Whenever you think it forgot about you,_  
 _It will hit you._  
 _Just like that –_  
 _Every time._

 _Love just happens."_  
 ** _― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem_**

* * *

I have a few nudes of him and of his lower half-I can't believe I don't remember shit!

I was able to officially remove the taste of vomit from my mouth for the third time, and I climbed into my bed dressed in my blue Pajamas. I had Ricks PJs draped over the chair just in case he did come to me. I wanted him to know I expected him to come to me. My expectations were and will be for us to be together.

My back against my headboard, I pressed play and saw a likeness of me having what appeared to be some very good sex and the way I was riding him, the likeness of me, pure enjoyment. I watched all 40 seconds of that video five times.

Different odd angles.

The next video and the next and then one where he held his camera to show my expressions.

Rick was staring into my phone, while I too, was holding my phone to film his expressions.

 _"What are you doing, Rick. What are the results? Check it."_ I was impatient.

 _"You are so beautiful, Michonne."_ His eyes. The most serious eyes were staring back at me. Like he was awestruck by me.

 _"I am going to take away your Ambien for tomorrow night if you don't tell me, mister._ " I had said to him in my instructor's voice.

I know at some point we had stopped taking the Ambien _because we_ couldn't remember shit. Walmart, Pixy Stixs at the Gas Station, Dennys, Playing strip poker at Daryl's Auto shop and now proof that we have been having sex? _Good sex_ and I can't remember any of it?

 _"You are going to have my baby, Michonne_." He declared into my camera phone as I had continued to play the video. It was my voice. It was me. I just don't remember it.

 _"Is that a statement from you or the Results?"_ I had asked Rick.

 _"From me. The results just confirmed my statement as fact_!"

Rick declared triumphantly. The many expressions that I gleaned on Rick's face. The tears that filled his eyes. He was trying to hold it back, but he was happy. Happy.

Rick leaned closer to me. I leaned in closer to him. We began to kiss, and my phone soon had the back of his head before it fell on the bed based on the rest of the scene captured nothing but the ceiling of my home on the River.

It was him. His voice. His words, coming from his lips to my ear, _"I am so in love with you Michonne. I love you..."_

I replied back even though he wasn't with me at that moment, "I love you so very much too."

I touched my stomach. I rubbed my belly guessing where our baby was growing inside of me. I love you, Rick.


	44. Father to Son

_"My heart is burning a hole in my chest and every time you speak to me, it keeps sinking, and I'm left with nothing but ashes. I wish she were talking to me, because the more she speaks to me, the more my heart flutters like a rising phoenix._  
 _-Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz"_  
 _― Karen Quan, __liQUID PROse QUOtes _

* * *

There are a time and place for all things, and this wasn't the time nor place. Lori's parents lecturing me in the hospital waiting room about my bad behavior. I stayed silent. I tuned them out and kept my eyes on the television news story about stolen diamonds.

I am a grown ass man who made some very bad choices, but I wasn't going to defend myself if I _wasn't_ defending myself to Lori. The focus should be on Carl not, Lori. Not _me_.

The only way for her parents to stop and shut the hell up is for a random stranger to walk in and have a seat in the waiting room. Silence. More people came in to have a seat and wait. Waiting.

I was relieved to have a break until my parents came waltzing in again and my mother Ella, pointing at me and then to Senior which meant I had to get up and go with Senior to the cafeteria.

"Are you losing your way, son?"

"I have lost that a long time ago." I admitted as we sat across from each other at the table with a small Styrofoam cup of coffee untouched on the table.

"Do you know what direction you most likely leaning towards in finding your way? Which path you may take? Nothing worse than being at the crossroads of life. You make a decision you can't look over your shoulders at the other direction you could have gone you know?" I wondered if this was going to eventually have a scripture attached. It didn't.

"I know you ain't a gambling man, Dad, and you don't like taking chances or doing things on a whim without praying over it first, but I got Carl that is fighting for his life, and I find myself willing to fight for one too. A life." I admitted.

"Lori is your wife." Senior Grimes reminded. He wanted it noted in God's good book that he was instructing a wayward soul such as mine to eye the correct path. My dad didn't like Lori. He never did but I was a married man, an adulterer.

"The moment Lori told me I killed Carl...she stopped being my wife. The constant, nagging and bitching about I ain't done everything I can when I thought I was doing all that could for the both of them. For Lori _and_ Carl. Carl-now he never complained but Lori-"

"You have to see it from Lori's perspective, son and most of all God's. You have to, and if you can't, there is no moving forward with peace because Lori is going to always use it against you to hurt you."

"I don't think there is more that Lori could do to hurt me, Dad."

"Let your mother tell it, a woman like Lori can be very creative."

"I didn't mean shit to her. The shit that was expected of me didn't mean shit. I didn't want Lori to do it. She's my wife, the mother of my child. She is not a whore. I am her husband, a father, and it is somehow okay for me to do what I wouldn't want her to do?"

"It kills your mother, Richard that you have a much higher regard for Lori than for yourself."

"I don't like that Lori is telling the family about this. About this situation between us. Here I sit revealing things to you for you to side with me. To see it from how I see it. It's not right that I am doing it. I just feel-"

"Isolated. Alone. That is the embrace of the Devil, son."

"For once can we talk man to man. Not father to son? For once?"

"Lori says you have videos and pictures of the other woman on your phone. You need to delete them." My father chose the route of speaking to me as if I was just a mere child.

"I can't and I won't."

"What?"

"This not up for discussion." I stood up to my father right then. Right then and there.

"Give me your phone Richard Sinclaire Grimes so I can destroy it if you aren't going to delete the incriminating evidence against you and the devil's temptation."

"I am not giving you my phone. I am not deleting my photos."

"You know they have a name for woman like her on your phone that will video tape things of a sensitive and intimate matter?"

"I hope you refrain from telling me because the only name I have for her is Michonne, who's pregnant with my baby."


	45. Black As Night

_"Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end."_  
 ** _― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84_**

* * *

I still can't get over this...

How in the hell have I been having sex and not know it? Not have any memory of it? I must officially be losing my mind. Sex with him? Wouldn't I have the scars all over my body from his Rough hands? Rough.

The thought of what I imagined, what it felt like, caused a part of me to stir awake, awoke. He seemed, I seemed to really enjoy every moment. The moans and the way he said my name. The way Rick would stare down at me. Only one full length video of where I starred in a Porn? My lady parts were coming alive. I ached.

Was that why he always seemed refreshed in the morning compared to when he first arrived? Were those extra butterflies I felt when the night took over the sky was because I was in anticipation of that? I remembered the Butterflies.

There was something-a memory that was fleeting.

After the first time, they had shared the same bed with the no sex rule strictly enforced or so she thought. Michonne thought they slept.

Now the first morning, when he awoke the same way she did, like a million pounds of negativity had just dissolved away overnight, the answer was evident on why that was or had been, Michonne began to recall the after effects of waking up beside him. Cuddle to her Snuggle? Snuggle to her Cuddle?

She had felt like the energy of the past that consumed her was abated with him lying in her bed those lazy mornings, but she didn't know why until the evidence was presented by short clips, videos stored on her phone. Snap shots.

All that time Michonne had been giving credit to his eyes that peered into hers while the sun peeked in through the heavy drapes that weren't closed entirely, Sunlight.

Redressed in PJs after showering they both weren't any the wiser then, until now. Cleanliness was on the list. Cleanliness was in bold print. A rule that was never broken.

Hours had gone by, and Michonne was mesmerized by the snapshots of a sexual nature shared with another. And even though she could not recall it in any discernible detail-it meant everything to her. She didn't know it was possible. She didn't know her heart could or would come alive the way that it did with this layer added. Her heart. Oh her heavy heart felt much lighter in her chest, crimson red and beating still. Her heart was no longer black as night.


	46. A Kiss He Will Remember

_"The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender."_  
 ** _― Emil Ludwig _**

* * *

"Hey." Rick greeted his son Carl.

For Rick, stepping into this house wasn't anything like where he had just come from, relinquished temporarily from his duties while Michonne did whatever Michonne did, when she told him to leave only to ask him back a day or two later. This house, his house that he shared with his family seemed ready to suffocate him when he voluntarily inhaled, refusing to exhale until he saw the frailty of his son, but yet a spark that fired from his eyes.

"Hi, Dad," Carl responded back to his father who had entered the home after being gone for a longer time than before. Carl went back to watching his television show. He had seen this episode of the Walking Dead at least five times. He had memorized all the lines and decided instantly not to use any of them on his father who hadn't watched anything past the first season.

"Where's your mother?" Rick asked. He glanced around the house, and his ears were attuned to any sound of Lori, there were none.

"She's at the new neighbors. They've just moved in."

"What's your mother doing over there? How long she's been gone?" Rick was concerned.

"Since you been leaving, she's been leaving too. She needs a break from all of this too you know. Like you."

"Is that how you see things?"

"She likes meeting people. New people. She's like a welcome committee."

"Everything that's going on?"

"Mom needs to pretend just like you, Dad."

"Pretend?"

"Pretend that you have the answers. Pretend that there is a cure for all this. That you will bring back a way for us to be normal again."

"There is no pretending, Carl. I am making a way. I am not sitting around doing nothing. I'm making sure I do everything in my power to help you beat this. I am."

"But you are gone for days, Dad. One time you were gone for over a week. Some how it feels the same whether Mom is gone for an hour or two or you are gone for days at a time. It still feels like you two aren't together even when you are in the same room at the same time."

Guilt. Guilty. There were no words that Rick could think to speak without everything feeling like a lie. A fairytale.

The moment was awkward for him and his son. The silence was thick, and the only sounds came from the characters talking on the television. Rick didn't recognize the woman who kicked the leg of the man to sit up on the couch. She was holding a Baby Monitor for him to look at as she sat beside him, slouched.

"I am glad he picked her." Carl said.

"Did he have any choices?' Rick wondered who would have been the various love interest in a Zombie Apocalypse. Why was anyone worried about love when the dead was walking the earth?

"She was the only choice. The best choice."

"How so?" Rick sat next to his son on the couch. He wasn't sure what was happening between the man and woman on the screen and what was significant about the mints.

"She protected his kids. She's fierce, a fighter, a friend. She's loyal to him even when he was not." Carl surmised for his father.

"Was she aware he wasn't loyal in return?" Rick asked.

"Yeah. She knocked him out when he went crazy in the streets in front of everybody. It seemed to get his marbles back in order."

"This is their first kiss?" Rick watched.

"Yeah. The one he will remember in the morning." Carl smiled.


	47. She Called Me

_"She puts her hands on either side of my face, and the room falls away. I have never gotten so lost in a kiss before._  
 _And then, the space between us explodes. My heart keeps missing beats and my hands cannot bring her close enough to me. I taste her and realize I have been starving._  
 _I have loved before, but it didn't feel like this._  
 _I have kissed before, but it didn't burn me alive._  
 _Maybe it lasts a minute, and maybe it's an hour. All I know is that kiss, and how soft her skin is when it brushes against mine, and that even if I did not know it until now, I have been waiting for this person forever."_  
― ** Jodi Picoult **

* * *

I knew I should have waited longer. It had been a week since realizing I was going to have a baby and he still hadn't come to me. I had gone to the doctor to find that I was approximately two months pregnant. Healthy.

At some point, I realized I had his phone number. The thought of calling Rosita to acquire it filled me with dread. I had it and spent half the day debating whether or not to call him. I called.

After the 4th ring I was losing my nerve, and then he answered.

He answered.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself."

"I was wondering when you were going to break one of your rules and call me." Rick said into the phone. His voice was sexy. This was our first phone conversation and his voice caused my voice to quiver in response to how it affected me in everyway.

"I have it as a rule?" I had asked. I wasn't aware of this. I had no memory.

"Yes, you do."

"Why?" I wanted to know.

"Because, you are not ever to call me. You are only to text."

"That makes no sense for why I would have it on the list."

"It was my list Michonne. You had a rule list for me. I created one for you. I have rules too."

I could hear the smile he wore on his face. I imagined how it played upon his lips; his tone was light, lighter than I had ever expected as was my phone call.

"Where would I found my list of rules, Rick?"

"In your drawer. Your underwear drawer. The one that has all the blue panties."

"You've been in my underwear drawer, mister?"

"From the looks of it, I have been _in_ your underwear. Now-you are unsure whether or not to be upset with me or smile." Rick teased.

"I am not upset, Rick."

"Which leaves, you are smiling?"

"Do you have time to come by to talk?"

"Michonne about everything..."

"For me, Rick it's something..."

We spoke simultaneously.

"I'm sorry Michonne you go-"

"No. You go first."

"You are on my phone."

"You are on mine."

There was a pause neither of us knew how to continue or what we really wanted to express. Then Rick broke the awkward silence between us.

"When I have this as proof, I can't think of nothing else than to find out if it is as really good as it looks and sounds."

"From the looks and sounds of it, I have to say I can't think of nothing else," Michonne admitted.

"I remember very few things, and I feel like I have been cheated out on probably the best part, Michonne." Rick confided.

"What's that?"

"Feeling everything as I was making a baby with you."


	48. The Foundation Crumbled

"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God."  
 _ **― Corrie ten Boom**_

* * *

The two had spent less than two hours coming to a decision to go through with an organ harvested from a pig. Mother Ella had literally fainted outside the waiting room when her son Rick signed the papers to have Carl airlifted to another facility and Lori stroked a check with the same pen. Senior Grimes felt for certain that the two fools were trying to kill his wife dead for sure.

"I am tired."

"We are all tired." Rick stated to his wife Lori who had the look of a woman who was worn the hell out. She was paler than usual or he was becoming more and more familiar with a preference for darker. She was paler, circles around her eyes, her hair in need of a good wash and brushing he thought to himself before he gave his attention to the television mounted to the wall. The news were still talking about the largest diamond heist.

"We have the whole waiting room to ourselves." Lori stated the obvious.

"We do." Rick confirmed finding a seat.

"They will have Carl ready to go first thing in the morning."

"Yeah, I know."

"It's a chance, right?"

"Lori. We signed the papers. I signed. What more do you want from me at this point?"

Rick wasn't a fortune teller, and he wasn't even Superman. He was a man that was numb when he was here, there at the hospital. All emotions zapped. He was a man that was at the mercy of God's Will no matter how much Rick thought he could prolong Carls fate, because in the end, it was out of his hands. What ever was fated for the Grimes Family was destined.

Rick was utterly drained, and all he wanted to do was take a shower to wash the hospital from his pores. A shower that he would not find in _his_ home, his very own home but another place.

He remembered fragments of showering at night and climbing into _her_ bed. A bed that didn't squeak. He marveled at the soundless mattress that needed no box-spring.

Fragments of being nude and pajama clad. Pieces that he strained to put together to make a cohesive picture. Rick couldn't tell from the jumbled variations in his head if they were things he carried from dreams into a waking state or waking state where he carried into his dreams where he could allow his imagination to go wild and uninterrupted.

 _What in the world? What are you doing, Rick?_

 _I am the Panty Monster._

 _Where did you get those?_

 _From your dirty hamper. I like sniffing your panties._

 _Take my panties off your head, Rick._

The voice of another pulled him out of his thoughts. Rick found himself preferring the solitude of his daily fantasies that increased and unfolded before him until the voice of the _other_ caused those very guilty fantasies to retreat and fold back into the recesses of his mind. Hidden for another time.

Lori was sitting next to him, and her arm touched his. Rick could feel how his body reacted to his wife sitting _that_ close to him. Familiarity did not bring comfort to him.

"Rick? Can we talk?"

"Talk? As in a two-way conversation?"

"Hear me out, Rick."

"One way conversation! Your favorite," Rick said sarcastically more to himself with the benefit that Lori _was_ listening. She heard him loud and clear but it did not deter her. She was reaching out to her husband to bridge the divide that was growing faster by the second.

"I made promises, and you have made promises too. We've made them to each other, and we have made promises to Carl. What you've done, in my eyes is come through for both of us. Me and Carl. I can see that. I know you think I don't, but I see it."

"Do you want to know what I see, Lori? Do you want to know? I see my wife looking towards my best friend as the man who actually saved the day."

"What?" Lori was surprised by what her husband was saying to her. She questioned why it was thought and spoken as if it was an actual thought of hers when it was not.

"Now that he has _things_ , I've noticed how you would light up for Shane when he had time to come around and check up on us. To see how I was doing and you making sure he knew how you were doing even though he never really asked you to stop everything that you were doing to tell him."

"What are you talking about?"

"There was always the negativity when you referred to me."

"I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never said-"

"Handyman. 'Everyone knows his work, but I sure don't. I've been waiting for two days now for him to fix the leaky faucet in the hallway bathroom and the dishwasher here in _our_ own _house_. All _Rick_ wants to do when he gets home is rest up for the next job that calls'." Rick mimicked Lori's response that she had forgotten but remembered.

"What's negative about it?" Lori asked honestly wanting to know.

"You asked Shane to take a look at it as if he came over to do it. You allowed him to do things that are my job. He didn't come to fix the faucet. He didn't come for the dishwasher. He came to see me."

"But you wanted to rest, Rick. I needed the faucet to stop leaking day one and the dishwasher just the same. You make time for others, but you don't make time for me. My needs weren't a priority for you."

Rick tried to control his emotions, but his tone was laced with cynicism as he spoke aloud his thoughts again, "Yeah, those ever changing and increasing needs of _yours_."

"Sometimes I look at you Rick, and I have no idea who you are. I see this _man_ before me with this full beard and slightly different clothes, _better_ clothes than he has _ever_ owned and I wonder who- you- are- and if you've changed on the inside too. Does the _job_ really change a man? The man I know? The man that I remember as _my_ husband? I think the situation has made you forget. Have you ever gone back in time by looking at _our_ photos? Our _family_ photos? I do. I look at the ones on my phone, and I remember a time when things were good between us. When we were feeling this _together_ , Rick? I am glad that with everything that has happened with Negan backing out, with the organ transplant underway, you can stop. The idea of you having a baby with that person was just ludicrous. I mean things are working out for us. We don't have to entertain those ideas. You don't have to do the _job_ anymore. You can go back to being a Handyman. Carl and I would love to have you back with us. We can be a family again. I want to work through what has changed _you_. I want you back, _Rick_. Back with _me_."

Lori's words did not fall on deaf ears. He heard her. He felt something that prevented him from reaffirming. It was larger and stronger than he cared to acknowledge as he breathed in deep. The realization troubled him, and it was the reason he felt the need to find a way to reconnect with his family because it was him standing on his own two feet ready to walk away from everything that he thought he was fighting for, fighting to keep.

Lori's words caused him to be more disjointed. It took several minutes before he spoke. He had spoken even though he realized, Lori was more than likely asleep. Her head rested on his shoulder. Her steady breathing told him she had dozed, but he spoke softly to her hoping to reach his wife and possibly an understanding.

"It's not the job. I don't even consider it a job, but I know that you need to think of it that way for the way that your mind works, Lori. The situation didn't change me. The choice and my actions did."

It was then, minutes later that Rick turned on his phone to find photos, memories captured in hopes to identify a path to return to Lori. It was then when he saw pictures of a happier time between him and his family he remembered every detail of a connection. He found the electrical socket all he had to do was plug in to get the jolt he needed. To Refresh.

It was then Rick was introduced to what he didn't remember. The photo's the video clips that he dared to watch while his wife was presumably asleep. The man he had become essentially finished off the destruction of any semblance of a foundation with Lori, his wife, _if_ he had ever really desired to maintain his marriage for the sake of _Carl_. That is what it would have been for if he had been able to-Refresh. One click and the stunning reveal had him on a much different path and it was solidified. Evidence right there. He could not deny it wasn't him and he wasn't going to deny the woman in the video he was with either.

Rick had destroyed his vows that had the most crucial ingredient of keeping two people together, and that was-Trust.


	49. Someone Is At The Door

_"It was exactly as he'd thought it would be, like the first time and the millionth time all at once, like being wide awake, like losing his balance. Only this time, it wasn't just him; this time, they were losing their balance together."_  
 **― Jennifer E. Smith, This Is What Happy Looks Like**

* * *

I couldn't help crying...

I had practiced on how I was going to react when Rick eventually arrived. I was going for the strong-willed woman who hid behind the Facade, but I gave him the woman that was teary eyed and so very happy to see her man come to her, that I forgot everything when staring into his eyes.

Think of Bobby and Whitney when she jumped into his arms and kissed him. That was me with Rick who was surprised by my actions, but he went with it and kissed me back. My legs were wrapped around his waist, and he carried me inside my place in Atlanta, kicking closed the door behind us. Not once did we stop kissing. Hungry for each other. Our need was more than we could handle and we were at the mercy of the position we were in and clothes that we wore.

Rick backed me into the wall next to the credenza that hung, in the tight space where any wrong move we would fall or stumble towards the living room that was still some distance away from where we were kissing passionately. He was palming my breast that ached for his skillful rough hands to graze them. He squeezed until my nipples became fully ripe like dark berries ready, oh so ready to have his tongue and mouth over them but instead we continued to kiss and explore each other mouths. Ravaged.

Freedom. No rules. This was different. I felt connected and full of love that I wasn't-just 6 months ago, sure I was capable of feeling, experiencing, and producing. This was coming from me and felt by him and vice versa. I would fight to keep this, him and everything that came with having him here with me now. I would go bankrupt, happily to have him as-mine.

There were no words shared between us. I could feel his arousal against my pelvis. I tried to keep the friction going, but we were going to fall no matter how Rick held me and kept his legs braced. It was the weight and our frantic pace to discover each other with our mind, body, and spirit clear, cleansed, detoxed that we were as children when the distant sound of the ice cream truck was getting louder and louder. I wanted to be licked from head to toe and I knew he wanted me to suck him like a Popsicle. It all was going to happen in no particular order. He tore his mouth from mind. I knew he was going to say, "Michonne-" I wanted to hear him say my name...

 _Why does the ice cream truck sound like my doorbell?_

I awoke from a dream that felt eerily real or experienced. I wondered if it was something I carried over from my dream state to a waking state _or_ _pieces_ that may have happened in my waking state that I desired and conjured into a world of fantasies. Lucid Dream State from Melatonin I found I could have these moment with Rick and expound on forever and ever and ever.

Ding, Ding, Ding.

"What in the fucking ding-a-ling!" I said to no one as I sat up on my bed to hear my doorbell again.


	50. INTERMISSION

_I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me_  
 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me_  
 _down in the hole_  
 _down in the hole_  
 _ **The Soul Of John Black**_

* * *

 **INTERMISSION**

 **Wait...What?**

Yes.

This is what it feels like going down in one of Foxissofoxy rabbit holes (Fox Holes). I've put a pause on S'cream Into My Pillow.

Yes, right now Dear Reader(s) you are peering down in where the tumbling start to happen and possible madness and confusion. This is what it looks like. You can now look away and exit this story with a clear grasp of how I write.

I thank you for taking this crash course and hope you will now find a way to enjoy my other stories that are all rated M. Some will say for the mature, but I say M is for possible madness. Like Til The Casket Drops or Dear Diary is it Destiny or Fate.

 **But This can't be the end or is it?**

Yes and no. It's a choice for you to make. When I proceed with S'cream Into My Pillow After this short Intermission Break we are taking you may find it intriguing or off putting. If you want to enjoy what you are feeling now-Do not proceed after the Intermission is over.

 **Intermission? I have never experienced an Intermission before. What should I expect?**

I know. This intermission is once you turn the page. It is from me Foxissofoxy presented to you for a short period before it takes a life of its own. It is called The Long, Long Road. It is **not** S'cream Into My Pillow.

 **What does The Long, Long Road have to do with S'cream Into My Pillow?**

Absolutely nothing. This is an intermission story.

 **Fox, I have never experienced an Intermission story**.

I have no idea what other writers are giving to you Dear Reader(s), but I think that you just might want to exit while you can or skip the intermission altogether if you have ideas of a particular symmetry of Richonne or storytelling in general. You will not find it here.

 **What about S'cream Into My Pillow?**

I will continue with the scheduled program that still won't fit your needs as quickly as you may desire but it will be entertaining, I hope.

 **Where is the Intermission?**

Yes! Sounds like you want to proceed before falling head first into the Fox hole! Yes. Thank you! I appreciate all that dare to re-imagine!

 **What are you doing Foxissofoxy?**

Counting how many people will fall into the Rabbit hole with me now that they are falling...or maybe it's just me. LOL.

* * *

 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me,_  
 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, but_  
 _when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me,_  
 _I'm down in the hole I'm down in the hole_

 _I was_  
 _down in the hole_  
 _down in the hole_

 **The Soul Of John Black**


	51. Home

_**Along A Long Road**_

* * *

Home. This place existed in the new world that the survivors carved out for themselves. It wasn't the same as before but it was close enough. Alexandria was the right place to become acclimated from where they had come. The government run underground shelter wasn't close to having a real home. A house that stood tall and new in the sunlight. Real sunlight. This was different.

"Kids are ready," Mike whispered into his wife's ear.

"Okay," Michonne responded quietly.

"Are you all right?"

"Huh?" Michonne realized she needed to focus.

"Are you alright?" Mike was genuinely concerned.

Mike pressed his body into his wife. He pulled her from the bathroom counter where she stood staring into the abyss, her reflection not mirroring back until his voice caressed her ear, pulled her from her thoughts. Michonne was present. She smiled. His arms encased her. The wary eyes peered into hers, masking the truth with a half smile hoping to produce a glint while the other was trying to glean if this was the beginning of the end.

"Yeah. I'm good." Michonne responded trying to relax her body to lean into his as he stood close behind her. She patted his hand as a sign to let her go after a moment of just standing there. At any moment her heart was subject to betray her.

Mike stepped back and away. His hand still on her waist causing Michonne to turn away from the mirror to face him. He took his wife in. Her hair was pulled up, and the summer dress she wore and the color was a beautiful choice for the family picnic. A celebration for the new families that have arrived.

"You look like summer," Mike remarked.

"Summer?"

"I would say hot, but you would say-"

Michonne laughed, "How old are you?"

"You are beautiful, Michonne," Mike said seriously.

The compliment was surprising. It had been a long time since Michonne had received a compliment from her husband. Michonne wasn't sure exactly when her husband had stopped telling her she was pretty or that he found her attractive but to hear it now caused her to realize that it was odd coming from him. There was a time she fished for it, yearned for it and soon forgotten how important it was to feel desirable or pleasing.


	52. Knock Knock

Mike had promised Michonne he would procure a house for them in Alexandria. He had promised. She would much rather go back underground than to live in the trailers that were provided to them at the hilltop. She had made her displeasure known to anyone who would listen.

The address matched. Michonne stood on the porch and pressed the doorbell button next to the front door and then knocked. She waited to hear the sound of footfalls closing the distance to open up, and she braced to make yet another introduction. The smile she had garnered from within curved her lips upward, but it didn't reach her eyes. This was the part she hated.

She disliked trying to initiate conversation and trying to find a mutual interest, but as the wife of the new sheriff in town, she had to make appearances. This is what her husband Mike Benton expected. Cordial. The community having the ability to place a face to the name. Country people expected this type of relationship with their civil servant. She couldn't remain hidden at the hilltop much longer and retrieving her children before nightfall was paramount.


	53. I Didn't Know He Lived There

The door swung open, the screen remained closed. "What the fuck, Michonne? What are you doing? This is my home."

Her eyes quickly went to the numbers by the front door to indicate this was the right home. This was the right place. There was no mistake.

"Rick?" Michonne asked surprised. She knew the man. He graduated the Academy with his friend Shane

"You need to leave. I need you-"

"Not without my kids. My children are here."

"Your kids?"

"My husband told me to come to this, this address since I was in town. A birthday party. My kids are here, Andre and Abigail."

Rick quickly put two and two together. His boss dropped two children off to Carls birthday party and indicated the wife would come to pick them up after awhile. The new sheriff.

Michonne lowered her voice and added, "I'm not here for you."

Rick swallowed. His face flushed.

"Open the damn door," Michonne demanded, staring awkwardly at the man who began to realize the enormity of the situation. New World.

"They are out around back."

The two stared at each other, both unmoving. Rick unlocked the screen door once he realized Michonne was going to decide to go down the steps to the back of the house.

The click caused her to pause. Creak of the door, Rick stepped aside. Michonne stepped inside the home where the corners and views were obstructed except for the sound that a party was going on, Happy Birthday in the distance. She waited for him to lead.

No additional words were shared just the energies ignited and bouncing between the woman he knew he couldn't resist and the man that she felt could bring down all her guards.

Painted on jeans and stilettoes, stood before him, sexy stare, nostrils flared and narrowed, lips slightly parted, a ghost of a breath felt when she inhaled heavily causing his exhale. Her almost sheer white blouse contrasting against the dreads that hung down past her shoulder and her deep hues of dark brown skin. There was a belt that separated the waist from the hips. He counted the hindrance including those that lingered outside. He was losing control and every millisecond indicated she was with him if he dared to cross the lines imaginary or real.

Time stood still. The sound of Tic tock couldn't compete with the deafening sound of the rush, sudden high from pounding of hearts. The day had come again where reason and logic went to the wayside. To his left was a room where he hid with lust and wild desire.

"Rick what are you doing?" Michonne questioned.

"I don't know," was his only response to what was about to happen next.

Pressed with her back against the wall in a room that was randomly decorated with furnishing to indicate a decision wasn't made what to actually do with the front room that had a door that was now locked behind them.

He kept both hands palms flat against the wall, eye level they both waited for one to make a move and when it was initiated any air was zapped immediately out of the room. Hot. Kisses. After the third, he had to break to breathe.

Michonne finally spoke. She was heady. Her chest was heaving from her ragged breathing as she said his name almost breathlessly.

" _Rick_."


	54. Caught In The Act

The deputy sheriff had no response to his name, he bit her nipple through her shirt. The nub hardens between his teeth. Thumbing the other burned but he fought the ache to touch by keeping his hand on the wall. Slowly he went to his knees, placing stray kisses along her shirt covered abdomen while her hands grabbed a fist of his hair when his nose pressed against her pelvic bone. Her body had a mind of its own. His tongue against the material of her jeans.

Michonne could feel the heat. The pressure. She imagined the wetness and what the tongue could do and the lips that kept reaching for to press against her sweet spot. Opening wider only made her more delirious with desire. Sensing his hunger, she wanted to feed him, but it only increased her craving, neither thirst for each other satisfied, just increased exponentially. The pull to his hair got him off his knees, and the need was designed for their end. Eyes weren't seeing clearly when the mind succumbed to primitive mating ritual.

Quickly his hands gripped Michonne's ass while her legs were wrapped around his waist. Clothes were in the way but this was intense, he couldn't stop, and her sweet scent and the lips that he decided was the taste of midnight and wine, nothing good happens at that hour and the state of drunkenness. Yes, lips for him that was like the taste of Midnight and wine he decided. Nonsensical just like what they were doing in his very home with his wife Lori in the backyard hosting a Birthday Party.

"Fuck, Michonne." He gave into the powerful feeling of simulating sex and actually coming undone. He felt his seed spilling forth in his underwear.

"Yes." Michonne gasped when she felt his body convulse in such a way that indicated he had reached his peak.

Michonne increased her speed to catch up to him, finding just his body's announcement was practically enough to send her teetering on the brink before spilling over and embracing bliss, his mouth hovering over hers. Gasping, panting. The scent of sex perfumed the air with a subtle, unexpected hint of piss.

"I'm sorry. I need to leave." The small voice declared in the room.

Rick and Michonne froze in hearing the request. The voice in the room with them was a voice of a child. The two tore apart from each other. The shock. Discovered. Wiping away the kissing from their lips and standing further apart wouldn't erase what was witnessed.

"Sam, what are you doing in here? Why aren't you at the party in the back?" Rick asked.

"Playing hide in seek, sir," Sam answered nervously.

The knob turned to the door that was locked with three occupants inside before the knock came on the outside of the door.


	55. A New World Order

I fell in love again. I fell in love again, and it happened suddenly and without warning. I had my life planned out, and this was a major detour. It wasn't enough that we were reorganizing. Somehow I became infected and forever changed by love's grip upon my heart. Chest pains.

The plague that caused the dying to not die was a war that we continued to wage and policing had changed. New World Order. Communities were able to thrive by giving up the majority of their fundamental liberties, this created a new way of patrolling the streets with consistent curfews for all. Curfews and limits helped to establish order. The undertaking and the magnitude of the endeavor were the cost paid for stability. Military with new uniforms that prevented infection by the infected was quickly introduced and now it was ready for anyone that was fit and of sound mind that wanted to join the new and improved regulated NW police department. The military took a less active role. It was now up to the capable and able body citizens to continue with the semblance of balance of keeping faith in a tomorrow with one goal in mind, survival of the human race.

It was a shock to me that Mike would step down from the high level in government and want to actually participate in the social experiment or reconstruct of our society. Mike was excited by appointment as the new Sheriff in charge of a group of men and one woman who had little to no experience, in a small community called Alexandria. A Yale graduate wanting to play Sheriff. I a Harvard Graduate with a Law degree playing dutiful wife assigned randomly to teach middle school by a woman who was in charge of giving out jobs in the town. I turned it down. I had no interest in teaching children. I had two of my own, the desire to stand before a group of pubescent un-nerved me.

Visual desolation was very different than reading about it. Psychologically it was overwhelming to tour. Together we had taken our children out of the first safe zone for high-level government officials.

I followed Mike and taught the new rules, laws, policing between communities. Stop, and Frisk was a necessity to make sure the virus wasn't going undetected. Grasping the new concept of rules were hard for many that signed up for law enforcement. The failure rate was high for the older men and women who still clung to the old way.

"Hello, Everyone my name is Michonne. I am your instructor on NW Laws. I don't like to talk about myself, but I will tell you this about me, I can discern quickly if I need to have you taken out of the class. I am not here to waste my time nor yours. Whatever you remember from the time before has no place for here now and today. This is to ensure our tomorrow."

* * *

 **Intermission Completed Back to Regular Scheduled Programming.**

S'cream Into My Pillow coming up next.


	56. INTERMISSION IS OVER

**Dear Reader(s) this is now officially the Fox Hole.**

 **This will cause an acute case of confusion. For the life of me I don't know** _why_ **when you Dear Reader(s) have passed the Crash Course and continued with this steady pace into subpar madness.**

Proceed with **_extreme_** Caution or Exit if you wish. This show will continue on!

* * *

I remember the beginning. I remember some of the middle but nothing of the ending. I do remember that we were standing there with the bodies at our feet and _we_ even _then_ made sure that we didn't have blood on our blue pajamas.


	57. I Am Married

_"Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships."_  
 ** _― Stephen R. Covey_**

* * *

Michonne was blown away by Rick and what he had just spoke into the phone to her.

 _"Feeling everything as I was making a baby with you."_

"So you are okay with everything?" Michonne had finally asked Rick.

"I didn't want a business arrangement with you, Michonne. I didn't want any baby born of one either. That was what I wanted to discuss with you."

"I don't think I could be any happier than what I am right now, Rick. To hear you say that means everything to me."

"I want you to have more than something and to know you feel like it is everything makes me happy to hear it from you, Michonne."

"I didn't understand anything you just said, Rick. Are you high?"

"We were high a lot."

"I feel high now."

"The same thing I'm high on, I hope?"

"Love?"

"Yes."

"Causing a lot of Adrenaline."

"Yes."

"I'm in love with you, Rick."

"I'm in love with you, Michonne."

"Are you busy right now? Do you think you can come to me or I can come-." Michonne halted with her eagerness. She had never offered to go to Rick and for him to refuse her would crush her. She made herself very vulnerable. The long pause before he spoke had her holding her breath to make sure she heard him.

"I am in a middle of something important, Michonne. I would like to see you soon but, right now-." Rick felt the dread overpower the good feeling of certainty. He was in love with this woman he was on the phone with and yet he couldn't share himself entirely. He was going to have to tell her. She would have to know he was a married man. He was the married man with a dying son that he told her in his story about This Friend.

"Okay. I understand. Do you know when I can see you?"

"I don't know Michonne." This statement was Rick's second most honest response next to his first that he was in love with her.


	58. Negan Works For Her

_"For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first."_  
 _― ** Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games**_

* * *

Rick was incredibly antsy. He couldn't sit. His mind was everywhere but nowhere. His attention span was short and grown shorter as Carl slept, and his parents eventually left to get a head start by coming back in the morning to do another prayer vigil before the transport to another facility. Lori's parents remained to ensure that the fight would not happen again. Rick kept his distance because of the incident.

Somehow he rationalized slipping out to see, Michonne. He needed to come clean with everything and then she at least could make an informed decision to continue with him or not. Lori was aware, and it was only right that Michonne was too.

He had knocked on her door incessantly. He heard the noise that indicated that she was possibly on the other side.

"Michonne open up."

She didn't open. Rick's gut instantly told him he made the right decision to come to her that very night, or it would have been worse and harder the longer he stayed away.

"I would like to talk about this with you, Michonne. Open up. I don't want to talk through a door. Open up."

He heard her unlock and open. She stood before him in her blue pajamas looking like she cried her eyes out and he felt horrible to have to hurt her again with what he needed to tell her about him.

"What do you expect me to do, Michonne?"

"I expect you to want me to help when I can help. I expect you to know I wouldn't want you to think you were alone in what ever was going or has been going on to keep you away from me over a week now."

"Do you know what's going on with me Michonne?" Rick was curious as he stood in the threshold not daring to step farther into her home without expressed permission and full understanding of what was to happen.

"Yes. At least I think I do."

"It's not the mafia, Michonne."

"If it's not the Mafia then I am a 100 percent sure."

"About?" Rick was cautious.

"You are married, and you have the son that will die. That by some strange design I picked you to comfort me when I also decided to help a child, your child in the most sordid way."

"What are you telling me Michonne?"

"Negan works for me."

"What?"

"Negan was never a match for your son."

"What?"

"Negan is never a match. Negan was never a match. I arrange things to look a certain way. The very rare cases. It's the rare cases; the parents need to feel hope and then desperation to act. We needed desperation to set in again where they are willing for experimental procedures."

Michonne slowed for Rick to understand what she had just said to him and the magnitude of it that outweighed his reveal that he was a married man and she was his mistress.

"I didn't know you, and I didn't know he was your son."

"You were playing around with my son's life? Is that what you are trying to tell me?" Rick questioned taking one step inside her home.

"I didn't know you, and I didn't know he was your son," Michonne repeated.

Rick's posture became threatening, but it didn't frighten, Michonne who stared him right in the eye.

"What the fuck, Michonne? What the hell? My son? You are playing around with people and their children. These are lives! My son is my life."

"I picked you out of a photo. I chose you without knowing your story, and you kept coming back to know mine. I repeat I didn't know you nor your son, Rick."

"You were going to let him die?"

"I can't make that decision. You and your wife as the parents have to decide whether you want to experiment with finding ways to save him. What he needed I can deliver, but we don't have enough people in the case study to have it FDA approved fully without making people more aware of their options and their rights to prolong their life or end it. A choice. People don't act unless they are motivated to do so, and a viable option is presented."

They continued their stare down with the door still wide open. Rick's demeanor didn't change towards, Michonne and neither did hers towards him. They both were standing their ground a little too close to each other.

"I'm fucking pissed, Michonne." Rick was the first to look past her shoulder to the credenza for no apparent reason. "I'm really pissed."

"What is your son's name?"

"Carl."

"What is your wife's name?"

"Lori."

"What have you both decided for Carl?"

"They will have him airlifted in the morning."

"Good. Is Denise there at the hospital?"

Rick eyed her and responded, "Yeah."

"Good. Denise is full of nervous energy, but she knows her shit. Trust her at all times. Pete is a steady hand but a hot head if the right elements are in front of him to set him off."

"What are we doing, Michonne?" Rick asked.

"Talking."

"How is it I never know what I am stepping in when I set foot inside?" Rick wondered out loud.

"I am taking it that you've made a decision where you want to be and whom you want to be with and if you decide to kick your shoes off and stay awhile that will be how I'll take things." Michonne hedged.

"Awhile?" Rick began to remove his shoes by foot to heel and vice versa. He maintained his eye contact with the woman that wanted to be kissed by him.

"I will take what you are offering me right now, standing as close as you are looking at me the way you doing. I am happy with this moment, Rick."

"Then you will be head over heels once I do this." Rick leaned down and kissed her. She indeed wanted to be kissed.


	59. Dale and Spencer

"There will be killing till the score is paid."  
 **― Homer, ****The Odyssey **

* * *

"What is your name?"

"Dale. He's Spencer."

The two men found themselves in the darkened garage of Daryl's automotive shop. No other light shone other than what the moon could beam through. Over by an old Mustang was a yellow light bulb that occasionally flickered on and off. There was enough light to see that the future of the two men being interrogated wasn't very bright. Not bright at all.

"How in the fuck are you two fuckers part of this story?" Daryl marveled.

"We were told to pick up a package," Dale responded.

"What package?"

"Just a package." Dale shrugged.

"What was in it?" Daryl asked.

"A package was all that we were told. Nothing more." Dale informed.

"You expect me to believe you didn't know what you were picking up?"

"It was supposed to be an easy job. Pick up the package and drop it off."

"Drop it off where?" Daryl asked.

"Never made it that far when we lost it," Dale admitted.

"Do you see what I am about to have my big bro Meryl do to you if you don't tell us where the mother fucking diamonds are?"

"Diamonds?" Dale began to sweat.

"Yeah, What happened to the diamonds?" Daryl asked again.

"Handyman has it." Spencer squealed from the pain of having his thumb pulled back until he heard the snap.

"I am going to ask you one more time, who has the mother fucking diamonds?" Daryl eyed Dale with heated intensity.

"Handyman."

"How did this Handyman get his hands on the diamonds?"

"We were at the gas station when it happened. The gas station was being held up. We were about to enter to do the hand off with Eugene and shit went crazy when the two coked out fuckers came inside with Pixie Stixs claiming to hold up the place. My partner recognized the guy as the local Handy man. Said he had seen his handiwork with a gun, works for Mabel."

"Do you know Mabel?"

"Everybody knows Mabel."

"Do you know what she looks like?"

"Angela Bassett. A beautiful woman even at her age."

Daryl gave a look to Meryl who took the Revolver and shot Spencer in the head. The blood splattered and hit Dale in places that affected him in ways he thought he would soon lose consciousness.

Daryl asked Dale, "Do you know Mabel?"

"Everyone knows Mabel."

"Do you know what she looks like?"

"No."

Daryl stood up and told Meryl to beat the shit out of him but allow him to live to tell about it. Mabel is coming.

Into the darkness stood the Handyman waiting for Daryl to step close enough for them to talk. He heard the gun go off. He didn't care. His son, Carl was his concern. No one knew where he was transported.

No one knew who had his wife and son. His wife Lori was on that flight, and they were both missing over some damn diamonds that he had no memory of, but the video shows him leaving the gas station with the small brown package that was presumably worth millions of dollars.

"So you're the Handyman. Fuck."

"I have no idea what he's talking about. Me and a gun? I have no memory of any of it."

"The fucking video don't lie. We are fucked with Mabel involved. She doesn't like her name in shit. Mabel doesn't fuck with diamonds. If it ain't the illegal shit, trading guns, and narcotics it ain't her. She ain't messing around with stolen Picasso and shit. Diamonds ain't her thing."

"Then what kind of woman is this Mabel if diamonds ain't her thing?"

"She's the kind that will buy a diamond if wanted one. Men give her diamonds freely and she ain't asking for it, but she ain't got the right kind of team to move that sort of shit. She got Andrea but Andrea ain't from the upper class to pull the shit off either. The rest of us inbreds would more than likely fuck it up."


	60. Herschel Tries To Describe Mabel

" _Evil is a point of view ... God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately ... for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves._

 _God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are none so like him as ourselves."_  
 _ **―**_ _ **Anne Rice**_ _ **,**_ _ **Interview with the Vampire**_

* * *

"Mabel lives by rules and those who worked with her or know her know the rules very well. It was the only way to stay alive if you wanted to live."

Herschel sat in his Sheriff cruiser with Rick on the passenger side. He was brushing Rick up on the details of the mess or shit storm that was brewing.

"First thing, first, this Mabel isn't the Mabel you think you know. Naw, she ain't the little old lady that is sitting on the porch waving as you pass by on down the road. I am not talking about that one. Nor am I talking about the one that is in the church. There is another Mabel that goes by Bigmama, and I am certainly not talking about her with the baseball bat. I am speaking about the one you have never met, and if and when you do it's best you know what the rules are before she kills, and before you know you are good as dead."

Herschel was distracted for a moment about the call that was going out for other patrols to go out to a domestic violence 10th and nine before he continued with the reason Rick needed to know what he was essentially up against.

"Mabel is still a fine looking woman. She may be in her late fifties but she still fine and her body is still in good shape. Yes, Mabel looks almost identical to the famous actress that portrayed Tina Turner. Yes. Don't tell Mabel she resembles any one or she will more than likely have someone shoot you if she doesn't just kill you herself."

"How is someone this dangerous able to get away with doing the things you are telling me she is doing or has done?" Rick questioned.

"Because she is my woman," Herschel said quietly, and it caught Rick by surprise.

"But you are married." Rick was shocked.

"So are you. What is your point?"

"I need to find Lori and Carl."

"Then you better remember where the hell you put those diamonds."


	61. Rosita and Midge

_"To be successful, one has to be one of three bees - the queen bee, the hardest working bee, or the bee that does not fit in."_  
 _―_ _Suzy Kassem_ _,_ _Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem_

* * *

Rosita was pissed. She was very upset, and it showed. She had called for Shane to make an appearance in her office and if he weren't there within the hour, she would kill him herself.

News traveled. The birds were chirping, and it was all her fault for not taking a closer look at the man who was going to bring the whole establishment down now that Mabel was aware that Mamba was in love with the Handyman. Michonne and Ricardo. Why in the hell Shane had never told her that, was beyond all understanding.

Now diamonds were missing, and the last time they were seen was in the hands of the blue PJ bandits.

Herschel knew exactly who they were based on seeing the two in the Dennys making a spectacle of themselves.

Fuck.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I am going to have to kill you," Rosita said plainly.

"What?" Shane questioned.

Shane thought he misheard the woman who spoke with no trace of an accent. He closed the office door behind him as he stepped inside. He noticed the female dwarf that never spoke but went by the name Midge. She was part of the cleanup crew. Dressed in white, wearing white gloves, mean face and weird ass eyes. Shane thought all of this to himself before paying attention to Rosita.

"I will kill you if you don't tell me the things I need to know. I need to know them. If I don't know them, then I have to kill you and then kill the people that will soon come and try to kill me. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" Rosita asked Shane in a very controlled tone.

"Now that you are controlling the rolls of the way you pronounce your motherfucking Rs-Yes, Rosita. I can hear and understand you. What's up?"

"Your response indicates to me that you may not understand the gravity of the situation. Now tell me who the hell is the Handyman?"

"He's a friend."

"Tell me everything about _THIS_ friend."

Shane sang the song of all the snitches in the world. He sang to the heavens in acapella before he went into falsetto. The tale Shane told was what original fables were made off with the right amount of hearsay and tangible logic. He weaved a web of intrigue and suspense. The epic story had very little truth or credibility. Shane played the role of a snitch who would do almost anything to not be stitched. He was also _very_ loyal to his friend, Rick.

Shane has also witnessed Rosita and her clean up crew. The little female dwarf that stood on the other side of the desk next to where Rosita sat called him on it. She the dwarf and the Handyman was always used as the last resort.

"I call Bullshit, Rosita." The dwarf looked at her boss and then over to Shane who sat with a look of awe that she had spoken. She never spoke, but this had called for her voice to be heard. "Do you know where the diamonds are?" Midge asked Shane.

"What diamonds?"

"Do you know, Mabel?"

"Mabel's name is mixed in with some missing diamonds?" Shane was surprised.

"I will ask you again, do you know where the diamonds are?" Midge voice was strained with anger. The amount of bloodshed would have _her_ and the rest of the cleanup crew scrubbing for days if Rosita was involved in _any_ way.

"If Mabel is involved the last thing we need to be worried about is finding diamonds. We need to locate the fucker who put Mabel's name in the shit." Shane suggested.

"The bee hive has been disturbed. There is a bounty placed on the Handyman who was last seen with the diamonds. The birds have indicated he has no memory of having diamonds."

"Do you believe the birds?"

"I believe the bees will sting," Rosita said ominously.

"Bees. Honey Bees. You have used this analogy with me before Rosita, and I am beginning to believe there is someone else that is Queen Bee in all of this?"

"My hive has been disturbed."

Midge stepped from around the desk.


	62. Rick Really Wanted To Shower First

"When I was growing up, in our house nudity was defined as the period of time between the shower and your towel."  
 **― Amy Cohen, The Late Bloomer's Revolution**

* * *

Michonne was head over heels in love with him. The way that he kissed her was amazing. The way he backed her into the wall near the Credenza was how she imagined it would be, everything. Right there, then and now.

Rick allowed Michonne to feel the effects and how his body was reacting to being as close as possible to her. Michonne gasped when a sound escaped him that indicated he was beyond aroused.

"Why are you stopping, Rick?"

"I'm not stopping, Michonne. I am pausing."

"Why?"

Rick pulled his t-shirt off over his head and watched Michonne undo the buttons of her blue pajama top to expose that she wore nothing underneath. No bra. Perfect breast, size, and shape. She stepped out of her pajama bottoms as quickly as Rick had stepped out of his jeans. She with her blue panties and he with a hard-on that was outlined by the material of his multicolored briefs.

The sight of him standing there taking her in, memorizing her body by sight for the light in the foyer left every angle visible to him, and it was adequate and illuminating. She stepped out of her underwear, and he watched the material find its way down her thighs, knees, over the back of her calves to her ankle where she balanced effortlessly and stepped out of them.

Michonne watched his involuntary reaction to her as his thick protruding member twitched in his underwear. She knew he was trying to remember as she sought to do herself while they stood in admiration of each other. This has happened many times possible but this was their first time, and it will be the time they will remember. Nudity.

They had left their clothes right there in the foyer. Rick took her hand and led her to the bedroom. Michonne was surprised that they did not stop at the bed but went to her bathroom because he really wanted to take a shower first.


	63. Bob Stokely

_"A weapon does not decide whether or not to kill. A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made."_  
 _―_ _ **Steven Galloway**_ _ **,**_ _ **The Cellist of Sarajevo**_

* * *

"Listen to me and listen to me good..." Mabel had her gun drawn on the man she sat across from in the emptied Italian restaurant.

"No, You listen to me and you need to listen to me well, If I don't get my diamonds in the next 48 hours, I will kill everyone in my path to get to what is mine."

Mabel paused thinking to herself that the Governor was one cocky motherfucker even with her gun pointed in his face. She, Mabel had caught his group unaware. It was the way Mabel operated, without appointment, undetected, and she left the same way she came casually, unnoticed to have caused a shit storm aftermath behind her.

"Before you start this killing, I want you to listen to me with what brains you have now, because I promise you- if _you_ come for _me-I will blow_ what you have all over this place. A nigga and diamonds? What the fuck? I don't fuck with those types of rocks, just the green. What the hell would I look like having Tyrese or T-Dogg unload the diamonds? It would be a Nigga with Diamonds. It will bring us all down. I want the motherfucker who put my name in the shit so I can kill him myself." Mabel eyed the man who called himself the Governor who wore a patch covering his right eye that went missing in a fight he had with the Mamba some years ago _and_ that was still a source of contention.

The Governor dared to look away first to instruct the man who held a gun in Tyrese's face while Tyrese had one aimed at his heart and his other pistol ready for the one in the corner that had it drawn for Mabel. Same situation for T-Dogg and the somewhat buzzed Bob with all the tense drama had sobered up now. The three men were ready to shoot the six men that had them out numbered but never out played because Mabel had her NIV waiting to come in guns a blazing if things went South.

"I want you all to put your guns down. I think Mabel will hear me better if we act civilized on how we will _TRY_ to kill each other if my Diamonds aren't retrieved in 48 hours." The Governor spoke with great calm and restraint.

Bob Stokely realized he was a dead man and _he_ didn't even have the diamonds.

* * *

A/N:

Please remember each Chapter will not connect immediately. This will connect or each chapter will or it is layering or unfolding of more of the story. Take each scene and visualize until the next is presented to get a clearer perspective of what is happening or is about to happen. New characters are introduced or Original characters like Mabel or NIV from Dear Diary and he is in Highly Inappropriate. He looks like Vin Diesel.

The scene for example of Rick wanting to shower. More will layer on to that or flesh it out more in Snapshot. Pieces of a presentation or theme. Or go back to Chapter one if you must to refresh with how the story is being told or relayed.


	64. His Wounds

" _Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead."_  
 **― Joss Whedon **

* * *

Sometimes I have memories flowing into others, and sometimes I have none at all. This time wasn't that time or the time before. This was different as I stood for a second and watched Rick immerse himself under the flow of my water jets long before the temperature was at the comfort level for us both. He was standing inside of my shower. His body very lean.

His body was well defined, and the scars that randomly gave character were stark compared to what I knew and what I imagined. Blues and purples, variations of old and new wounds lie across the expanse of his back and hip. Some of them were still red and fresh as the heart beats blood. Bright. He was or had to have been in a recent fight.

I wanted to touch. My hands were drawn to places such as his hip where there was a possible cut from years ago. This man before me had a body with a story. I spied a healed bullet wound that was stitched over by more than likely a novice for it was treated without thought or care.

His hair flat against his head, drenched, trickles of water falling from his half closed lashes over his high bridge nose to his red kissed swollen lips allowing the beard, his beard closing in on his face and jaw to drop fast and then drip slow. Trickling clear and free down along his shoulder chest and falling from his tiny pinched pink bead-like nipples. I wanted to hold my mouth open and capture the water there. I wanted to sip from his essence that he was quickly trying to rid himself of, free himself.

The suds he created all over his body. I followed them, the suds. I followed them all.

The ones that left his broad shoulders and traveled down his back where his shoulder blade became hidden and then revealed. As the soap bubbles moved further down and over his almost an ass, winding down the dark hairs of his thighs down along his calf to the heel of his foot where it halted for just a moment until the right amount of water caused it to spiral over and down the drain. I was aware of his need to get the _day_ , for he- had-a- day, off of him and rinsed away.

I didn't realize how beautiful a body he had, and he allowed me to take him in, to memorize more than just his eyes. The blues that always found its way to flip my heart and grasp my soul bare causing my mind to think that my body was on fire. Burning. The steam was building, overlapping and soon we both would find it very difficult to breathe and yet we inhaled and exhaled in tandem.

Upon his lips the seductive smile hinted an invitation after he had taken his hands to wipe back the wet strands of his hair from his face. His beautiful eyes fluttered open to see me stepping into the ever growing cloud of steam that would soon fog the glory of his body and our minds. I was no longer a spectator. I was ready to participate.

In our closeness, I was standing there mesmerized by the odd contrast of colors and for me to add my brown made it strangely beautiful. I touched him. His jaw dropped and soon his mouth engulfed mine.

My touch ignited him and burned me. I gave into the passion, and his firm hold and relentless kiss fueled us as the water temperature climbed until we could take no more. It was fucking too hot.

...

A/N:

Will crank more out tomorrow. My apologies.


	65. Blue Eyes Blind To Despair

_"I'm not in search of sanctity, sacredness, purity; these things are found after this life, not in this life; but in this life I search to be completely human: to feel, to give, to take, to laugh, to get lost, to be found, to dance, to love and to lust, to be so human."_  
 _ **―** C. JoyBell C. _

* * *

Michonne stood outside of the shower watching me soap my skin. Her body appeared flawless as I took her in loving every inch of her nudity. I found her skin to feel smooth and she in all her naked glory delectable. I wanted to savor this moment and with closer inspection, diving deeper, I found Obsidian in places where she allowed the sun to kiss her neck, shoulder blades and her toned arms. I considered her my perfect evening where the moon radiated underneath her skin. Hues of dark and darker in comparison to my skin, my hand, the tips of my fingers that made her tremble and sigh.

Her taste. Sweet. Sweeter still. My tongue that traveled upon her flesh greedily in hopes she would melt like a chip into my mouth. Chocolate.

There was something about this woman that made her different. Something that made her unique and it could be that she was capable. This lady didn't need a man, but she wanted me. I was a firm believer that she could have any man she wanted, but she chose me. There was something to be said about a woman who knew what she wanted and didn't need a man to get it. It was sexy as fuck.

Rick had seen Michonne this way at least a hundred times by rewinding his video clip. This time was different- because she was in the shower with him kissing him back with the same fervor and greed. His hand cupped her breast and fondled them gingerly with her back up against the shower wall until he could no longer tolerate the hot water pounding against his back.

He wanted to taste her everywhere and all at once, and his need for Michonne escalated to the point that the shower was a very precarious place for them both. If the anticipation didn't kill them it would certainly be the fall as they began to slip, lose balance.

He put a timer in his head of how long he would be here, there with Michonne and when she began to grip his aching, throbbing member he had to add another hour and another and another. Hours later...

When Rick did finally awake, it was after 4 am. He had stayed seven hours too long. He quietly slipped out of bed, freshened up and dressed. He had clothes he found in the closet that Michonne had set up for him with his own wardrobe that she deemed more appropriate and suitable for her to tolerate looking at him whenever he was over at her place. The quality of the clothing was a better fit, more comfortable and the cost was evident on the tags he pulled off.

Michonne was still sound asleep. Her dreads covering most of her face. Her back was bare to him as she slept on her stomach. How he wanted to climb back into bed and sleep longer with her until they were both ready to wake. He wanted to talk more about the baby. Their baby. He wanted to make sure she was aware that he didn't agree to the name Ambien if it was a girl. Abigail. Not Ambien.

The drive back to the hospital he had flashes of Michonne. Her smile. Her laughter. The way she kissed him. The way she watched him as he showered. How she stroked him. The crazy sex they had on the bathroom counter and the bathroom rug by the tub. The way she spread her legs open to him. Her ass in his hands as he gripped to bring her closer to his erection. Her taste as she came undone all over his face. The thing she did with her tongue. He had to collect himself in the hospital parking lot.

The vision of Lori's face helped bring him to the matter at hand and to feel a moment of shame for finding solace in a time where he should be wallowing in despair.


	66. Herschel Told Rick

_"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real."_  
 **― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses**

* * *

Herschel inhaled before making the decision to continue. He had exhaled any doubt he may have had in getting Rick up to speed with his past and how it was to shape his future. He determined that starting from the point that mattered the most to the man that was a father and a husband, a crucial time that was pivotal would be the best place to start. They sat near the boat dock in his Sheriff cruiser nearest the lake looking out over the water that was dark and murky as the story he was going to try and relay.

"From the way that Mabel saw it, you were a threat. The only way to keep any semblance of peace for her son, Mike was to remove you from the picture but- you beat her to the punch-you came to her asking to put it all behind you. Walk away. Wash your hands clean. It was the time that Carl first had fallen deathly ill. It was at that point."

"I don't remember any of it." Rick said sitting forward in the passenger seat of the cruiser. His back no longer resting against the seat.

"Well, I guess that is a good thing you don't. A blessing and a shitty deal. You were in a no win situation at the time. You went raving mad when all of your money went missing. You needed it for Carl. Shane said opening the door to the storage unit to find _nothing, not_ one cent of your blood money likely sent you stark raving mad. You killed three of Mabel's Handyman as if she was the one who did you wrong by stealing your money."

"Did she?" Rick asked.

Rick had no idea of any money in a storage unit or the amount that was taken as he listened, trying to piece together his life, his mind, his world. Before this Rick thought he was nothing more than a carpenter, fence repairer, lawn mower, and odd jobs guy. He tried to rewind to 7 years ago and earlier and wasn't able to recall much that didn't center around Lori or Carl.

"She did, but you got to see it from Mabel's point of view. You had three offenses. You took notice of her daughter in law, Michonne. You began to sniff around Michonne, and you were aiming to mount Michonne, if Mabel wasn't at the hotel where she stopped you from making a visit. You had flowers and a box of chocolates so Mabel recalls. Mabel said if you could have turned any whiter she would have loved to close the casket on you and throw your ass in a hole but she wasn't on good terms with Rosita nor the cleanup crew then, nor is she much now on good terms with that Latina Mafia.

"I knew Michonne before now?"

The information for Rick was hard to process and to understand.

"You did. Almost seven years ago to be exact. A seven-year itch you seemed to be experiencing, but yours seem to only be brought on by a particular person." Herschel knew that Rick and Lori were married going on 14 years.

"I just...what?" Rick didn't know what he was going to say.

"Here's the story told by Mabel or some in parts may have been told to Mabel."

"Like what?"

"How you first come to meet, Michonne. You were in awe. Couldn't stop staring at her. Took a lollipop from her and sucked it and what really got Mabel's gonad was she took it back from you and commenced to sucking."


	67. Second Hand Information

_"The villains were always ugly in books and movies. Necessarily so, it seemed. Because if they were attractive—if their looks matched their charm and their cunning—they wouldn't only be dangerous._

 _They would be irresistible."_  
 **― Nenia Campbell, Horrorscape **

* * *

We finally found a Handyman that was actually handy. He knew his stuff, and he knew how to take down a man when things got tight. His reputation began to precede him. It was like Candyman. Say his name in the mirror three times in the dark in front of the mirror, you will get the eerie sensation that he would appear. Same with Handyman. Fuck over Mabel and you were guaranteed a visit by Handyman. This introduction and tie solidified Shane in the ranks of Mabel's team. He swore his allegiance to her, and he reaped the benefits of the cash and clout. Fist bumping and hand shaking with the best of them.

The Handyman was mysterious. No one knew what he looked like outside of Shane and the one-time introduction to Mabel. A driver took her to meet him. She pulled up in a limo and Shane and Handyman got in and there, the introductions were made. Handyman was also known as Rick Grimes.

Mabel never knew anything about him. She didn't want to know the details of his life. She only wanted to know if the job could be done in exchange for x amount of dollars.

Shit got crazy when Handyman almost lost his life on a job that was botched due to no fault of his own. Took a bullet and received a couple of stab wounds. He woke up two weeks later in a warehouse staring up into the face of a relieved and nervous doctor.

The incident was the beginning of a wake-up call. Rick wasn't aware during that time Lori was trying to reach him because Carl wasn't well.

Lori was worried about him and all alone with Carl who had fallen sick. This type of sick wasn't the kind he would take over the counter medicine for or wait it out, and he would then eventually get better. No, Carl's fate was hanging out by the pearly gates as time passed and each year he saw into the next could easily be or was supposed to be his last on earth.


	68. My Name Is Denise

_"No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable."_  
 _ **― James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name**_

* * *

"Where am I?" Rick had asked.

"Hey, I am so glad you are alive. Oh my god. My name is Denise. I was the one that, well I had to read what to do to get the bullet out of you, and I did take one year of Med school before switching to Vet-"

Rick tried to sit up, but the pain was too much, "Oww, shit!"

"You will feel like that for a while." Michonne stepped forward from across the room. Her confident voice filled the hollow spaces.

Denise whispered before Michonne got close enough to hear what she had said to the injured man,"You need to thank her. She saved your life."

"Why?"

"She would hope you would do the same for her if it were a shitty plan."

It was the things convoluted dreams were made of, consisting of the meeting of two great fighters who didn't know either actually existed but only from whispers in the corners and the very outer recesses where no one dared to go, or they would never return, Mamba officially meets Handyman.

I was there for most of it Noah and me. We weren't sure where the others were, but it seemed like Noah and I were designated to watch over him. He told us his name was Grimes. He didn't tell us that immediately but eventually he disclosed it. We called him Grimes during that time. We spent a lot of time in that warehouse.

I didn't hear the end of it on how poorly I stitched the wound. Mamba-I mean Michonne said I should have thought about the healing process. I had it too tight, and I wanted to make it right, but he wouldn't let me near him when he realized I wasn't really a doctor. He was done with the bullshit once he was weaned off the medication for the pain. We had to pretty much keep him high to have any type of control over him. Noah thought that he really liked the morphine. I thought he really wanted Michonne.


	69. Noah Is A Genius

_"A half-truth is even more dangerous than a lie. A lie, you can detect at some stage, but half a truth is sure to mislead you for long."_  
 ** _―_** ** _Anurag Shourie_** ** _,_** ** _Half A Shadow_**

* * *

"I work for Michonne. I work in the labs. I have been working since I was 14years old. I am a savant." Noah informed the man they called Grimes. Dressed in his lab coat, Noah stopped his explanations to why he was tinkering about when he noticed the man who had the demeanor of a police officer that could call bullshit but this man wasn't one who obeyed any known laws but broke most of them. Grimes.

"I thought Savants were autistic or had some developmental issues. Handicap." Grimes was curious about the young boy assertions in describing himself and what he does in the lab.

"I don't have any friends. I am socially awkward, and I rather be here tinkering around for a cure or solving that," Noah pointed to a dry erase board with two subset group of mathematical equations before continuing," than having one more person telling me that I am weird."

"But you are weird," Grimes replied.

No sooner that Grimes made the response, it was heard by Daryl and Michonne stepping inside the lab space.

"Who the fuck are you to call my friend weird, you motherfucker." Daryl took an instant offense. He had fallen for Noah shtick, and no one had ever made Daryl any the wiser to the farce.

"Noah is weird." Michonne came in behind, Daryl. "Pay Noah no attention, he isn't a savant. He is a genius. He has friends. Adult friends. I have no idea why he wants sympathy from men unless you are having daddy issues. Are you having daddy issues, Noah?"

"So you've been fucking around for sympathy?" Daryl asked Noah who wore the look of guilt very well. "You little fucker." The story that Noah had told him had pulled at his heartstrings and now knowing it was rouge was almost more than he could handle until Grimes who was in awe of the place spoke.

"So what is this place?" Grimes asked.

"A pharmaceutical lab." Michonne informed.

Michonne's arms were folded. She stood next to Daryl watching Grimes take in things she was sure he didn't understand. She was in no way going to try to help him because it would be equivalent to a person trying to explain what peanut butter tastes like to someone who never tasted it or smelled it and they had no desire to know or eat it. For all Michonne knew of the strangely attractive man was that he had no child that was dying of any rare disease to find anything she was doing interesting in the least.

"Where does Mabel come in?" Grimes wondered aloud. From what he could quickly ascertain this wasn't any Meth lab by any means.

All spoke in unison, "Nowhere."  
...


	70. Oral Fixation

_"I think of you only twice a day - when I am alone and when I am with someone else."_  
 ** _― Amit Kalantri, I Love You Too_**

* * *

"You must have some type of oral fixation," Grimes suggested standing in the office space connected to the warehouse.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Michonne replied back without looking at the man whom she began to find amusement with as he toyed with her as _if_ she was the mouse.

Denise and Noah smirked to each other but continued typing away on their laptops while Michonne had her lollipop taken from her mouth from none other than Grimes who seemed to be healing and getting around much more especially with Michonne being his motivation to do so.

"Really?" Michonne remarked surprised by the act of someone taking her lollipop, "Aren't you concerned where my mouth could have been."

"I am quite sure I know where you would like it to go," Rick replied leaning against the wall closest to the desk.

Michonne watched how his mouth enveloped her cherry flavored sucker. He was playing with her. He sucked and took it out. Sucked again, and took it out. She was almost mesmerized as she stood up from her desk and walked over to him as if in a hypnotic state if he wasn't so playful she could have easily been led to do whatever he wanted her to do.

"Where would I like it to go?"

Michonne asked for clarity, standing in front of him. There was something smoldering in her tone and the way she looked at him. Grimes was amused and kept giving his attention to Michonne's lollipop and then her lips.

The two weren't aware they had an audience that had stopped _typing_ and began to watch the two of them flirt flagrantly with one another.

Rick kissed the lollipop, he had the distinct impression Michonne wanted to be kissed by him, and he liked flirting with her in that way. The idea of having the upper hand was thrilling and she never once denied it, and he had not once denied that he wasn't entertaining the thought of crossing the line. For a moment he imagined the stickiness of their lips meeting at first contact. He thought how his tongue began to feel her need for him to lick the last remnants of sugary sweetness from her mouth if she allowed him and the compulsion was building in strength. His senses keen.

Michonne snatched her candy on a stick back from him. She gave Grimes an amusing show of how she would kiss him on the lips or on the tip of his head before she went and sat back down to immerse herself in what she was doing before he disturbed her.

"Now you have an idea of what I taste like. I hope you're satisfied now?"

"I think I've started a very dangerous game with you." Grimes admitted. His voice indicated there was something smoldering there just underneath the surface.

"Who's playing?"

There was another strange stare down between them. The way in which Grimes licked and bit his lower lip didn't help with the tension that was quickly broken by the ring of the phone and Noah snapped out of the haze that only the other two people in the room should have been in, he answered. It was Mabel.

...


	71. Story According To Midge

_"Hold it. You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the three bears eat the three little pigs, and then the bears join up with the big bad wolf and eat Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood! Tell me a story like that, OK?"_  
 _ **― Bill Watterson, ****The Complete Calvin and Hobbes ** _

* * *

Herschel remained in the cruiser while Rick walked along the boat ramp with a woman that was no taller than 4 ft. if that tall. She was of Latin descent. She was dressed in a white tailored man's suit for her size. She kind of reminded him of the little man Tattoo from Fantasy Island based on her stature and voice.

"Michonne was married to Mabel's son Mike. Mike was a big time lawyer. Smart. Very clever and then you came along and almost ruined what Mabel thought was a good merger. A good thing." Midge had begun her story or retelling of versions of events that she knew of first hand or it was told to her by those she trusted.

"But she was married to Mike. They had a child together."

Rick tried to recall an event that just wasn't there in his memory at that time. He only remembered the recent six months of meeting Michonne and what she had shared with him during pillow talk. He had a phone with a lot of sex clips that he had no memory of, and he couldn't understand why this was far-fetched to him somehow.

"Yes, she was and did. There was something more going on between you and Michonne, and it didn't fly under the radar by any means. You were very bold with your interest in Mike's wife. Cocky. You had the upper hand at taking his wife from him, and you seemed to like being very brazen no matter how much Michonne weakly I must say, rebuffed your advances. Mabel thought it very disrespectful. Her and Michonne shared some very unkind words towards each other. They began to share less and less of the same circles at the same time. The right never knew exactly what the left was doing and vice versa. You weren't expendable by any means to Mabel. You were needed for her business arrangements and needed to leave Michonne alone. Mabel consulted Noah." Midge scoffed at the name before continuing, "A child let me remind you. That's all Noah was at the time. Unleashing the imagination of a child is such a dangerous thing. Reminds me of a God we have people worship in those big churches throughout world." Midge realized she was digressing and found her way back, "Mabel needed something done about you, and Noah created the perfect remedy. He had thought. It was a scheme in removing you from the picture, and the only way to do so was to take away your memory. The selected memories of her-Michonne were erased. The memory of ever meeting her or that she ever existed."

"How?"

"I don't know. I wasn't there. Didn't want to be there. I have limits of what first-hand knowledge I want to be in possession of, and that was one I didn't want to be around for it but what I know is that Mabel had threatened Noah and Denise to figure out a way to keep you from coming back and the same for Michonne. Mabel liked what you could do and the angle you gave her. Your foot holds to keep those well manicured claws clamped."

"None of this makes sense," said Rick.

"Well, it never does when you are living on the outside peering in on a person you are no longer pretending to be."

"Could this have been mistaken identity?" Rick was still in evident denial of what was told to him.

"Have you checked out your scars? Have you ever wondered where they've come from? How you got them?"

"I-"

"What ever shit Noah gave you worked. Wiped the shit out of your mind. Dried Michonne completely out of your memory and then word gets to Rosita and filters to me that you two were brought into the jail in Blue PJs. Sightings reported to Rosita that you two were sleeping in the God Damn Walmart and holding up a Gas station with Pixie Stixs. I will tell you right now if the shit wasn't on store camera video we confiscated or Herschel over there in the cruiser hadn't seen it with his own two damn eyes, you and Michonne together at the Denny's I would just not believe it."

"What did Noah give me?"

"What he gave you was to either kill you or make you forget, and you forgot that you were _Handyman_ _and_ you forgot all about Michonne. It wasn't supposed to be _both_. You went back to your life with your wife and sick son. Forgot the pursuit of your money that was stolen from you."

"What about Michonne?"

"Michonne forgot that she is Mamba. Deadliest Assasin you were assigned to kill, and she was to kill you, but she forgot all about it when she swallowed whatever was concocted and became one of a few leading researchers in the field of rare genetic defects." Midge caught the look of disbelief on Ricks' face when she glanced up at him before continuing, "Hard to believe, I agree. But it is true. When she had assignments to kill she was helping people live more productive lives. Turned her back on all that she used to be or was. The only thing that has kept her alive while she walks around with amnesia is Rosita, Sasha, and Andrea. The three are deadly and have kept bounties and hits at bay. Then the thing that happened with her son, Andre. No one. No one could have prepared for that. It alone was enough to destroy not only, Michonne, but Mabel. She loved Andre. Mabel loved her Grandson."

"What happened? What happened to Andre?" Rick was desperate to know.

"Normally, Michonne has Andre. Normally, she's the one that takes him to daycare but this particular day it was on Mike to do it, and on his way to work Mike was abducted from the parking lot. No one knows for sure what group did it but it quickly got to Mabel and then to Michonne. It was a record high temperature that day. Ten hours to get Mike and all the while Michonne thought Andre was dropped off at Daycare. Mike was to drop their son off first." Midge stopped to allow Rick to process what she was saying as they stood over the water, both unable to process just how dark but knew the depths to be great.

"Andre was left in the car." Rick had surmised.

Rick had come to the conclusion that it wasn't by bears or lions the way Michonne would tell him versions of her dreams. This was possibly the far more cruel way for a child to be forgotten and to die he thought to himself.

"Reason why the Governor is missing an eye. He's the only one that she showed mercy to, _some_ like to believe. I think she was overcome with too much grief to finish the job. A mother bear who loses a cub isn't fit for battle." Midge replied.

* * *

A/N:

Slept and re-read what I wrote and corrected this chapter for more clarity before proceeding.


	72. I Am Just A Man

_"That's how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There's only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story."_  
 ** _― Haruki Murakami, _****_Kafka on the Shore _ **

* * *

I thought of my medication. I opened the glove box to find a bottle that had Percocet. I really needed something to help with my racing thoughts. I hated when my mind wasn't settled. My thoughts carried me everywhere as I continued to sit in the hospital parking lot. I must get out of my car, but I did not. Not just then I didn't. I eyed the cars that were parked. Other families or people, in general, finding themselves here when if they had a choice they would not if it could be helped by a bowl of soup and a good nights rest.

Pain. It was vague. The twist that I felt in my gut was an invisible hand holding the handle of a dagger. The tip of my tongue tasted the aspects of rage. The thought of my wife, Lori, pulling a knife on me during our escalated spat made me wonder then what did she see in my eyes before she felt the need to arm herself against me, was there that hidden someone that could not be pushed back into the darkness when it fed off of the dangerous level of rage where murderers ventured to dine. Hers and my own that grew like a wild fire. What did Lori see? Or was there another conscience choice made by Lori to look the other way, seven years ago and even as new as a few months ago?

Anger. I was often annoyed. Easily angered during those six months. I wanted to sleep on the couch as much as possible or the guest room. The need to separate myself from Lori was unexplainable at first, and it was hard to formulate the words to her when I could not admit to myself that something was happening to me, to us, to our marriage. Each day that I was left to find some aspect of the man that enjoyed this life, the health of my son aside, more of the struggle became a burden or not worth the climb for a prize that would be much more of the same, Lori. I wondered if I stopped loving Lori way before this and I was just now so utterly aware of it.

Grief. A sense of hollowness is very profound especially when suffering alone or being the one bringing it to your very own home.

Nothing. The goal was to feel. To feel the before all the insurmountable sadness took over where music once had a sound that engaged the senses but now a ride with the radio off was much more preferred way to travel from home to hospital or hospital to home.

I carried the pain, the anger, and grief as if it were my duty. I found myself tired of doing so and at times I would disperse it under the roof in which I shared with my wife and son. Carl was the one who needed me the most to just be Dad, not Superhuman when I was not. I was just a man in every sense of the word.

Lori was willing to forgive any indiscretion if I sought it. I did not. My heart seemed to have been ripped from my chest years ago, and I had no idea in whose hands it was in other than possibly Michonne's. Even though I had just a vague feeling of a long ago time it felt incomparable to now, the knowing the difference once wrapped just hours ago between her legs and engulfed in her wetness that covered me, I have wanted this, that-more than air.

I sat in that parking lot for more than an hour when a text appeared on my phone. It was Michonne.

 **Michonne:** _I miss you already_.

 _I miss me too_.


	73. We Are Not Lovers

_"It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because of what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many."_  
 **― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale**

* * *

I slept. I slept heavy. The kind of sleep where drool escapes from the corner of your mouth. I haven't had sex like that in a long time. I wiped the corner of my lips dry with the back of my hand.

I have been talked to death. Bored to death but never fucked to death. I had no idea where my life went I just knew the man that walked out my door in stealth mode had it in the palm of his hands and maybe remnants on his tongue and fingers.

I was officially orgasmed out, and yet my body needed him close to me. To feel him, smell him, hear him make a sound in agreement that we needed to cuddle closer to each other, me his little spoon. The back of my neck was chilly. His warm breathing gone as he was not there next to me.

I could sense I was in an empty home even with my curtains open and the sun was hidden by the clouds that were announcing rain. It was going to be a dreadful down pour.

I grabbed my phone and debated on texting or not. Rick was married. I have to consider that, now. I have to consider quite a bit that I never did months ago.

Falling back on my pillow my naked body could still feel him everywhere. He left his essence behind, and I was going to hold on to it for a while longer. I already had a baby inside of me created from such turn of events while unaware, and now this seemed to bring on more melancholy.

This bed and the bed in my other home located on the River were where we spent most of our time together. Times I had him he was mine. I never considered the time he wasn't with me he could have been someone else's. These thoughts I fought to not dwell on because I knew in my soul that what we shared, Rick and I was bigger than anything we have either experienced in our lifetime and may be for any other life time.

I clicked on a random video.

"Okay, Mister Man where is it?"

"Where is what?"

"My marijuana stash?"

A plume of smoke leaves his lips. He couldn't hold it in much longer. He made doughnut holes.

"You hid it from me. Why are you filming?" Rick asked.

"I want to have a record of a liar."

"I'm not a liar. I am your lover."

"Stop. We are not lovers."

"Not what you said last night," Rick responded casually.

"You are such a fucking liar, Rick. I am not having sex with you. I am not paying any man for sex and I have only known you for about a month now."

"Who said you were paying, Michonne? You and I are doing this thing freely. Our own free will. We are. You have been for a while. Why are you filming?" Rich stared at the phone completely blazed.

"We aren't having sex."

"You really think that is marijuana scent in the air only?"

"I am trying to catch the marijuana thief. You said he doesn't exist. I am going to prove it."

"How, if you got it on me?" Rick asked.

"Who else would I have it on, buddy?"

"Go over there to the mirror and film. Tell me who you see, Michonne?"

"I can't steal my own shit, Rick."

"You smoked up all your own shit. Now you fucking with mine. Trying to claim that it is yours. Go to the mirror."

Michonne could see that she and the way the camera turned and filmed at weird angles indicated she was getting out of the bed to go to the mirror with her phone. She was filming herself standing in the mirror. She had her floor length mirror revealing that she did not have her pajama bottoms on and possibly no panties. Her pajama top was unbuttoned. In the mirror, she could see Rick with his legs outstretched and back against the headboard taking another quick hit from the joint and he was checking her out. The lower half was very much alive in his pajamas.

"I must really be high." Michonne remarked about her state of mind, "I am not the thief." She declared adamantly.

Michonne's phone went out of focus. It filmed the bed sheets and recorded a few sounds from Michonne protesting with moans and sighs that they were not lovers.


	74. Intermission II

**INTERMISSION**

 **Wait...What?**

Yes.

This is what it feels like going down in one of Foxissofoxy rabbit holes (Fox Holes). I've put a pause on S'cream Into My Pillow. I am presenting a new story during this second intermission.

I thank you for taking this crash course and hope you will now find a way to enjoy my other stories that are all rated M. Some will say for the mature, but I say M is for possible madness. _Til The Casket Drops or Dear Diary is it Destiny or Fate._

 **But This can't be the end or is it?**

Yes and no. It's a choice for you to make. When I proceed with S'cream Into My Pillow After this brief Intermission Break where I am taking you, you may find it intriguing or off putting. If you want to enjoy what you are feeling now-Do not proceed after the Intermission is over.

 **Intermission? I have never experienced an Intermission before. What should I expect?**

I know. This intermission starts once you turn the page. It is from me Foxissofoxy presented to you for a short period before it takes a life of its own. It is called _The One That Got Away_. It is **NOT** S'cream Into My Pillow.

 **What does** _The One That Got Away_ **have to do with S'cream Into My Pillow?**

Absolutely nothing. This is an intermission story.

 **Fox, I have never experienced an Intermission story**.

I have no idea what other writers are giving to you Dear Reader(s), but I think that you just might want to exit while you can or skip the intermission altogether if you have ideas of a particular symmetry of Richonne or storytelling in general. You will not find it here.

 **What about S'cream Into My Pillow?**

I will continue with the scheduled program that still won't fit your needs as quickly as you may desire but it will be entertaining, I hope.

 **Where is the Intermission?**

Yes! Sounds like you want to proceed before falling head first into the Fox hole! Yes. Thank you! I appreciate all that dare to re-imagine!

 **What are you doing Foxissofoxy?**

Counting how many people will fall into the Rabbit hole with me now that they are falling...or maybe it's just me. LOL.

* * *

 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me,_  
 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, but_  
 _when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me,_  
 _I'm down in the hole I'm down in the hole_

 _I was_  
 _down in the hole_  
 _down in the hole_

 **The Soul Of John Black**


	75. Read With A Clear Mind

_Dear Son,_

 _I suppose if you are reading this it's a good indication you are of a clear mind. You are no longer so mad that you would rip this to shreds before realizing I always wanted the best for you. I don't love you any less or any more than Tara. Please make sure you tell her that for me, please._

 _I have to accept that Lori is your wife and you will stick with her come hell or high water, but I wanted you to know that there is more to life than a routine. There are colors, and it is incredible when you can see them and find the eyes that make it all possible to experience life where you want to live with music, song, and dance. A smile that can knock you off your feet and hips that sway most men into a hypnotic state. You only live once, and we have to live with the choices we make. Bad or good. Nothing worse than never knowing Passion. I tell you it ain't nothing like a taste of it._

 _You will know the difference between the first time you thought that it was what it was compared to this period where it knocks your socks off! If this is what you have with Lori, then I had it all wrong, and again, I am very sorry, son._

 _My fortune is yours son. Do with it what you will. The 100mil wasn't left to Michonne necessarily. I told her to hold onto it and give it to you if you ask for it. I didn't want Lori's grimy hands all over it and cause her to have an elevated sense of importance just because she is your wife. I hope God doesn't hold it against me but it's the truth, and it weighs heavy on my heart how the money will change her to the point of no return._

 _I am sorry for trying to control you and your sister with my tight gripped purse strings. Live a long happy life and make sure you split it equally with your sister._

 _Love you._

 _Senior Grimes_


	76. Lori

My life has turned upside down and yet I have found humor in how ironic things can be when looking from the outside in. What happened isn't the most important aspect, but the actions we take in the process of healing and moving on is and can be very pivotal for everything else. All that to say. I sometimes wish that my husband Rick was the one that got away. I had him since high school. He was my knight in shining armor. I had such a romantic love for him. I was a kid, and now as a woman, I've changed, and he has changed. Change is inevitable.

We have lost the spark, but it wasn't necessarily something to leave a marriage over. I didn't think so. Marriage is a lot of work and to think firework would still be there was being very silly 17 years later. Silly and Naïve.

I wasn't _in_ love with Rick. I could understand if he wasn't _in_ love with me. I loved him. I still do. It's the love part that is hard work, and I was willing to try harder, but he wasn't, and he said it to my face as clear as he could be.

It helped me to think about getting my own life in order, instead of begging him to see things my way. I told him under no uncertain terms if he walked out the door he couldn't come back.


	77. Lori: The Whispers

**Whispers**

It was at the funeral that things revealed themselves loud and clear. Senior Grimes had passed away, and everything fell out of the closet, and no one could kick it back inside to keep it hidden and out of sight from all of the spectators paying their last respects to a very wealthy old man. We all knew he was having an affair. We just didn't know with whom.

I tried to have a talk with my mother in law Ella about it wasn't right for Senior to have a female companion that he see's on certain days of the week. Mother Ella said she met the woman and the woman was nice to her and weren't Senior Grimes type. The woman was much too young for Senior, and she was a woman of color.

For whatever reason, she told Senior what I was implying or what I said, and he was pissed off with me telling me to mind my damn business. He said shit stirrers are good at stirring the pot but wait until they get a taste of their own medicine. I had a few choice words for my father in law.

I tried to get Rick's attention when the unknown woman strolled in, but he was distracted by his friend Shane who was salivating. Shane has no shame **.**


	78. Lori: The Other Woman

The Other Woman

The woman dressed in black stepped to the open casket and paid her respects to my father in law before making her way out not to be seen again until the reading of the will. It was something in that moment of her leaving when she found Rick, my husband. I had the distinct impression that they knew each other based on how they held eye contact.

Nothing about her was remarkable, just different. She was African American. She was well dressed, and her hair was pinned back. Dreadlocks I think they are called. No one knew who she was but based on what Senior Grime left to her indicated she was important to him. He obviously cared very much for the younger woman.

He had the gall to make it seem like I was wrong about him. A man can be friends with a woman. Just friends. Okay. I see you Senior. Full of hot air no more. I never liked Rick's dad.


	79. Lori: The Will

The Will

When the amount was read out loud, we all nearly gasped. Mother Ella, fainted. Senior Grimes had left millions to the woman named Michonne. My husband Rick was angry, and the confrontation began there between the two of them, my husband, Rick, and Michonne.

Rick was a hot head. Arrogant. I was embarrassed and shocked by his outburst and his verbal abandon with the way he was invading the woman's space to the point she cussed him out and left.

"You know better."

"Do I?"

"Well, I made it clear to you a few years ago. Do you suggest I do it again?"

"Yes. Please refresh my memory."

"I don't do married men. I've said it to your father, and I had to say it to you."

We were already quietly watching the spectacle, and the revelation hit me in the gut. Michonne was going for the jugular and had no qualms about it. Shane and Daryl were in the back amused.

"Really?"

"Don't ever come for me in a crowded room, I will bring the truth to your door, and you don't seem like a man who is ready."

My husband backed down like there was something to her words. He was embarrassed, and if he wasn't, I was embarrassed for him. Tara caused attention to focus on back to how best to contest the Will. My husband Rick followed Michonne out, and from the window, I could see them in some heated discussion in the parking lot. Shane went to go get him back inside.


	80. Lori: Fireworks

**Sparks**

Now months later I watch the fireworks from the outside looking in at them a year later. Rick didn't leave me for her. Rick left me under the guise of seeing life differently. He came home one day with an epiphany that maybe we could be happier and the only way to know, we would need to step back and separate for a while. Time apart.

I wasn't going to allow it. No. We could work through whatever was going on, and that is when he told me he didn't love me. I didn't have any idea what to do with that being said to me and the way he said it. It was like some one throwing ice cold water on your face and not expecting them to do it because you thought you knew them very well.

I was surprised about this love he no longer felt.

He seemed like he was unsure in what he was saying. Nothing made sense and then seeing them together once the dust settle it made perfect sense.

He was looking for fireworks after all.


	81. Lori: Contesting The Will

**Reasons For Contesting**

My husband made it his business along with his sister Tara to contest the Will. He spent a lot of time under another guise of doing this for Mother Ella. His mother. Rick's mother spent the majority of her time on cruise ships traveling the world while my husband made it his mission to find a loophole in Senior Grimes possible insanity or under some duress to give Michonne 100 million dollars when Carl, our 16-year-old son was only given 500 grand. Rick's only sister Tara received a 150K, and we received nothing but a large Abstract painting.

It was not coming inside of our home. I didn't care what Tara thought or what Google said about storing artwork of any value in the garage. NO!

It didn't matter to my husband that his mother received 125million along with the house, cars, and the rest of the art he collected. I think Rick was pissed at first that he was left with just a random painting and a letter to only open when he really wanted to know why he inherited a piece of art. It was sealed and in Senior Grimes Handwriting,

 _Do Not Open Until Your Mind Is Clear. Madness Blinds Us All._


	82. Shane: Life Lessons

**Life Lessons**

It's interesting how one day you are riding around town on patrol with your best friend who you went to school with from kindergarten and through High School, to find the passenger seat empty after a long-established routine. We were always together, brothers. Senior Grimes had always said that I would have been the son that he would insist Ms. Ella flush down the toilet and that is why I have a different mother and father. I loved Senior. His death was a blow to us all and everyone in the small community. He never forgave me for convincing his son Rick to join the Sheriff Department.


	83. Shane: Wealth

**Wealthy**

One thing about Rick, he never acted like he came from a lot of money. Senior raised both of his kids to work hard for their own piece of the pie. Tara joined the ranks of the military and Rick went into law enforcement, neither wanted anything to do with running Go Stop Insurance. I offered to remedy the situation when I ran into Senior Grimes a few years ago, and he continued with the same term of endearment that he would have insisted Ms. Ella flush me down the toilet and that is why God saw fit for me to have a different mother and father. He began adding God into the equation later in life. I think the older we get we need to believe in something that money can't buy, and that is faith.


	84. Shane: Pencil Skirt

**Pencil Skirt**

Wow! That ass. That ass. She was the only black woman at the funeral. I sat next to my best friend in all of Kings County and his grieving family. I gave him an elbow in the side to take a look at the woman dressed in black from head to toe. The way the skirt hugged places made me curious to know what was up underneath and if a guy like myself had a chance to plant a firm, wet kiss on each ass cheek. Damn.

Rick gave me a look, and I tipped my head, and he knew exactly what was what. He shook his head at me like I was some type of damn deviant. I noticed eventually his eyes were glued even though he tried to play it off when she, the black woman was walking away from the casket, and her eyes met Rick's and they had some type of stare down until she walked past our aisle. I was straining trying to put it into the atmosphere for her to look my way. I was sitting right next to Rick. Look at me. Look at me! She glanced and kept it moving.


	85. Shane: Self Proclaimed

Self Proclaimed

Everyone that was expecting something was called to attendance for the reading of the Will. The woman who didn't stay long for the funeral was present for this, and I tried to start a conversation with her, but she gave me a look that what I was doing was incredibly inappropriate. If only she knew what I wanted to do to her down the hall in a vacated office...Mm Mm Mm. She looked mighty fine in that pantsuit and very high heels.

I didn't care much about how much he left for the mysterious woman that we all found out was named, Michonne. I mean, the amount was noteworthy, but I felt the man was loaded and was of a sane mind, he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do with his money. He couldn't take it with him, and if he could have, I believe he would have had it overnighted as a certified Earthly check to his PO. Box in Heaven.

Anyway, I was surprised that I was even mentioned and gifted a much newer pickup truck. I couldn't help my eyes from misting at the thought Senior Grimes had left for me when it was read,  
I don't care what memories you have created in that 1987 Ford F150 whether it be in the front or the bed. Park it, store it, junk it. I leave you a much newer model, and hopefully, you can create more legal memories than what you have had with my son, Rick. Your dream Dad. Senior Grimes.


	86. Shane: Crazy Check

**Crazy Check**

My friend Rick, was pissed.

There was no rationalizing with him. Each day that had gone by he was becoming more and more withdrawn. He was no longer indifferent to life and how things were dealt with him and Lori. It was like he was in some hyper-elevated state. I had to be careful of what I said and how I said things, or it would set him off. He was left with a piece of Abstract art, and we both stood there just looking at it.

We stared at it. We stared. We stood back and stared some more. I gave up looking at it. All I could see was that it could have been created by a 3-year-old, but this creation had value per Mr. Grimes. Rick was ready to punch a hole in it if it wasn't for Tara who said it might be worth something and to give her time to find out and if it is not, she wanted to help him destroy it.

I kept the envelope. It was sealed. Rick handed it to me when he was the most lucid and told me to give it to him when he found peace with his fate. No sooner he handed me the envelope with Senior Grimes parting words did he go Shit Storm Crazy punching the dashboard to my pickup truck that Senior Grimes had bequeathed to me. I prayed that the envelope held inside a Crazy Check for my friend Rick.

Down deep we both knew that there wasn't going to be a crazy check but some words of wisdom from Senior on how he saw things and how things could be better and Rick wasn't ready for any advice unless it was about taking that 100 million from the Bitch named Michonne.


	87. Shane: Wildfire

**WildFire**

Word spread quickly and was fueled by events that happened soon after Senior Grimes was placed in the ground and the first shovel of dirt hit the casket. Most of what was said or repeated my way wasn't entirely accurate. Quite a bit of it was and quite a bit wasn't. What certainly wasn't true was that Rick was leaving Lori for the very same woman his father was having an affair with. Rick was leaving Lori for the very woman his daddy fixed him up with on the sly. If I were a talking man, a man that was appointed to get the story straight that is how I would tell it. But I am constantly reminded to not speak the ill will of the dead. Senior Grimes did not like Lori one bit. I have my unconfirmed accounts why but I don't like spreading gossip about my second family.

I wasn't in a position to tell the falsely spoken words that fell into my ears how wrong their assumptions were because-one, it was none of their business, and number two my loyalty remained with my friend Rick. I knew the truth of things, and it wasn't my place to set the record straight. If Rick wanted people in the town to know the truth, it would have to come from him, and he would have to care enough to want to do it.

What I wasn't expecting was for him to take a leave of absence. What I wasn't expecting was for him to leave me long enough for a new partner to be assigned to me. What I wasn't expecting was to find myself tangled up with his wife who was in need of answers because the whispers were keeping her awake at night and the lies were sounding more and more like the truth.


	88. Daryl: A Chance

**A Fair Chance**

I met Rick in high school. We had different sets of friends. Everyone knew his Dad owned an Insurance Company of some type and he didn't like being associated with it because we would try and tease him with Go. Stop. Go. We were Juvenile even in the 10th grade.

My dealing was mostly with Shane who wanted to know where or how to score alcohol and weed for any of his parties that I was never invited other than the one where it was raided by the police, and we all were hauled down to the station.

I don't know what came over me, but I took the blame for all the shit. I told them that Rick didn't know nothing about it. An innocent bystander and they believed it. Everyone believed it except Senior Grimes. He saw through the lie somehow and sometime later when I was released from Juvie he told me that he wished I would have thrown them all under the bus but since I didn't say anything-if I ever needed an opportunity he would make sure I had a fair chance in life.

Fair Chance?


	89. Daryl: The Funeral

**The Funeral**

I wanted to pay my respects. I almost talked myself out of it. I had tried on an old suit, Pattybelle hung on the doorknob. She didn't try to make sure it didn't touch the dirty floors. I dusted it off, and it was too tight and too short and outdated from what I could see from time to time men wore on the television shows or commercials.

I was running late. Very Late from my calculations and the time on my Timex watch. I parked my bike beside an expensive white Mercedes that still had an occupant in the driver seat. She was looking at me and it kind of made me self-conscious with my decision to wear a T-shirt and my biker vest along with my worn jeans and my I don't care boots. I never shy away from a stare down, and her light brown eyes were agreeable, and it made no difference the color of her skin. She was beautiful.

Not sure how long we were just looking at each other. I was already off my bike and with her window rolled down she introduced herself first with a smile and a curious look on her face.

She had said her name was Sasha and she liked my Bike. Told me she hadn't seen one in a while that was in good condition like the one I was riding and she was impressed. I told her my name was Daryl, and we began to shoot the breeze as easy as having the wind caress your skin if you were standing just right for it to cool you down when you least expected. Time escapes you when you are in sync with someone, and that was what happened then, and the spell was broken and the time began to tick more loudly as if it was on mute or pause. The sound of high heels approaching our direction.

A woman dressed in black strolled over to the front of the Mercedes. She had darker skin and had that money or educated stance. People think I am crazy, but people that got something good about themselves tend to stand apart from those of us that ain't got shit to offer or shit going for ourselves. She too looked me up and down as if she could see that gave her full attention to her friend that was obviously the driver that she was done here.


	90. Daryl: Lottery

**Lottery**

My mama, Pattybelle was excited. To her, it was like I had hit the lottery with my name being in the Will. We had plenty of people die in our own family, and they never had shit to leave behind and had no reason to have a Will when they didn't own nothing.

Mama Pattybelle wanted to come with me, and I had to make it known to her that I wasn't having her come with me. My brothers wanted to come, just in case, I needed backup if anyone says it ain't mine to have and I had to make it known to them too that I didn't need them either-this was for me and my chance. I was tired of having nothing and nothing to show for the nothing I have done in my life. Anytime there was a spare we always divided it up between us to wake up with the same set of circumstances.

This was going to be the time I don't or won't divide shit.

One time Senior told me if you keep doing the same thing and get the same outcome why not change up what you are doing?

I was ready to put that to the test. My family doesn't get shit.

I had found a seat in the back of the room. I felt like an outsider even though I was summoned to be there. I noticed that the woman I was sitting next to in the back was the same woman that got into the passenger side of the Mercedes a couple of weeks back. She had her legs crossed and didn't object to me sitting next to her. She almost gave me a smile, and she didn't lean away from me like most people would do when a stranger sits next to them. She was dressed in black but it was a pantsuit this time. Not one speck of lint and it was weird that I was amazed by it. The more I tried to catch glimpses of her outfit and that it was lint free was interesting to me. She smelled good too. I wanted to ask her about her friend, Sasha but Shane sat on the other side of her and began monopolizing the conversation.

Everyone was quiet when Andrea the attorney finally came inside of the office and sat down at her desk and started taking sheets of paper out of a folder that she went to the printer to retrieve. Copies of a certified document that Senior Grimes had drawn up by a group of Lawyers from her firm.


	91. Dary: A Job

**A Job**

The blond haired woman had a list of names. I was anxious for her to get right down to it. I wanted to know what I was going to receive. The anticipation was going to kill me and it took no time for me to realize she wasn't going in alphabetical order.

The first name called out was Ms. Ella's, Rick's mother and Senior Grimes wife. She was left with a lot of money and a lot of things from my estimation. Senior Grimes wanted it to be known that he had always loved his wife and for her to pay no never mind what the people may say after the next person's name is mentioned. Well, it was mentioned, and she fainted. Michonne. I was sitting next to Michonne. Michonne was going to leave that room a very wealthy woman from the looks of things.

I was given full reign of a collision center at Go Stop. I got a job. A job. A job? Senior Grimes had to be shitting me, but his final words were meant for me,

Gainful employment. Nothing more promising than earning a steady income. Life changes dramatically when you can be paid an honest wage for an honest days work. This is your chance, and I hope that you are ready, Senior Grimes.

I held onto the envelope not sure what to make of the situation that I was finding myself in, and I had no words to express gratitude, so I got up and left.


	92. Daryl: Money

Dreams Crushed

No one is going to get me to say a bad thing about Senior Grimes. I don't know what he had going on with the woman I was sitting next to when the Will was read. Nothing was ever told to me officially by either of them, and I haven't gone around asking them either. It is none of my business. Anyone that asked me I tell them the same. None of my business and it be best if they make it the same-None of their business.

I know money changes people. Money makes people see things differently that is for sure and when you are told that you ain't getting shit when you had hoped to have a small windfall, but it was given to someone you didn't know shit about, it can cause insanity. From what little interaction I had with Rick after the reading of the Will, he went off the deep-end, and Lori wasn't any help to reel him in from making a spectacle of himself down at the Honky Tonk where he liked to get his drink on. Lori had left him at the bar. She took the car and didn't care Rick had no way back.

It was me who took him home. I got Rick out of there because the alcohol was like a truth serum and it had more weight coming from his own mouth. People were having a good time dancing, but the ones at the bar with him were listening. They were hanging on to his every word. If you let Rick tell it, he was being punished for marrying Lori and Carl was being punished for having or sharing Lori's genetics. That's the kind of shit you keep to yourself whether true or not but you don't give this sort of shit to everyday people who already thought Lori was a bad choice.


	93. Rick: Gold Digger

**Gold Digger**

That was what they called Lori behind my back after I married her. I didn't see Lori that way. I fell in love with her the moment my eyes landed on her in the 11th grade, and it had always been that way.

Lori likes nice things. What woman doesn't want beautiful things? I wanted to provide it, and I tried to give her things within my means. Every year her desires became more expensive, and on the salary that I made as a Sheriff Deputy, it was getting to the point of unmanageable, and I had the conversation with my wife that we need to scale back and she agreed. We were in agreement. Our marriage was running smoothly from how I saw things.

Carl was soon to graduate high school, and he had his sights on becoming a police officer even though Lori kept him pointed in the direction of one day running Go Stop. Carl didn't want that, but he gave his mother the impression that he would consider something that Senior Grimes never offered the position of CEO.

Little did Lori know that my father would rather die than hand over his company to anyone that did not attend, graduate with high honors from an Ivy League school like he did from Harvard.

I was a disappoint to my father for not being smart enough to get into the school without him buying me a spot and my younger sister Tara who chose the plight of full-on lesbianism and pushing boundaries where sometimes you can get further by staying and working within the confines of imaginary lines. She joined the military.

When my father passed away suddenly the house phone rang non-stop. Phone numbers I didn't recognize were reaching my cell phone with condolences. My mother's home looked like a flower shop with all the different arrangements that arrived from all over the world. We were all in shock by his passing. It hit my mother, Ella the hardest. Carl and I took turns staying with her to make sure she was okay on the farm even though she had people that cleaned and cooked. Tara arrived a day later, and Lori picked her up from the airport.


	94. Rick: Wrong Time

**Wrong** **Time**

I remember standing in the mirror staring at myself in my black suit. It was a suit I had tailored at my father's request a few years ago for a black tie event. Lori refused to go because she didn't want to be out dressed because she imagined the women wearing very expensive evening gowns.

It was in this very suit that I first met, Michonne. I met her then. My father introduced us, and we hit it off instantly. It seemed that I had my dad's blessing to get up and away from the table and dance with Michonne. Ballroom dancing. A basic five-minute waltz. I hadn't danced in years and the waltz-was the only dance Lori, and I practiced relentlessly for our wedding reception the other dance was the Tango that we gave up on when I dropped Lori several times during rehearsals. No matter how much Lori and I practiced for that day, we were always stepping on each other's feet no matter how slight, we were not in complete balanced. Together we had no balanced rhythm with each other. We were completely stiff and offbeat.

Michonne was an understated dancer. She was incredible and sexy. She was smoldering hot in that evening gown with the mile long split on the side. Captivating to watch her hips. I had asked her what type of perfume she was wearing and she said something in french. I smiled and she smiled back. I had absolutely no idea what she said. I called her scent, Michonne.

The few hours Michonne and I were there together with the way we were at the table shared by my father and a few of his colleagues I got a chance to know the most amazing woman. She was not only smart but funny, attractive with a great sense of self and where she fit in, well-rounded with a knock your socks off, smile. She was also a Harvard graduate, top of her class and I knew instantly she had won my father with nothing more.

Her laughter and her consistent banter had me awestruck. She commanded respect with as little as a twinkle from her deep dark brown eyes even when her tone was light, but her words held weight. This was the night I remembered. Many people thought we were together, that I was her date. I was dumbstruck that I could have ever been so lucky.

I thought then when my father was leaving for the night, and Michonne followed that he was having an affair. I wondered at least as I too followed them out realizing they had come together. My father wandered off to get her coat that was checked in, and I stood with her dreading the moment that we would depart going our separate ways.

"I had a good time."

"I did too. It was a pleasure meeting you, Richard."

"Rick. Everyone calls me Rick."

"I am not everyone. Only a very select amount of people have the privilege to know you intimately, and I appreciate you bestowing it upon me the honor, but I don't think your wife would be agreeable."

"My wife-"

"Is a fortunate lady as is your mother."

There was that smile again. Michonne was toying with me, and suddenly I realized she recognized what I was doing before I knew what I was doing. I was fishing.

I had my fishing pole and not quite sure what bait to lure her from my lucky bastard of a father, and she was getting away, and this opportunity would be gone forever.

"I find that I am very attracted to you. I enjoyed your company immensely and could easily find myself in a situation that I am not well suited for-and that is coming in second. Being second. I am not made out for it, and I refuse to test my ability at it. I don't play well. I don't share. I don't believe anything that is not in writing with adjoining signatures just in case you want to use the worn out adage that you and your wife are not together anymore."

"Wow."

That was what I had responded with at her remark. She waited for me to figure out what to do with my fishing pole. I had no idea that I would feel a huge disappointment in my gut that I too wasn't cut out for it or ready for Michonne to be in my life.

We said our goodbyes that night. I sat in my car and watched my father open the passenger door for Michonne to get in before he closed it. They drove off, and I still sat there trying to figure out a way to see her again. I wasn't thinking clearly until some days later, and it took awhile for the haze to wear off for me to recognize I have already chosen a partner and I had made my vows to Lori. It was the first time after 13 years of marriage where I almost teetered.


	95. Rick: Art

**Art**

I did want to destroy the Canvas. It would have caused me great satisfaction. I had no idea what the hell it was with bright colors, reds, oranges, and yellows with animal print, large brown eyes and if you tilted your head just right, you could make out full lips and a hint of browns and pinks.

My friend Shane helped bring it to my home and placed it in the garage against my sister's advice. Tara said it should be inside just in case there was value. Fine art needed to have air condition. The fuck if I was going to bring it in the house. It was huge and would go with nothing. Lori yelled from the kitchen at us to not bring it inside.

I would have a few beers and sit in the garage and stare at it. I began to see her in between the colors. I began to sense the art coming alive then. The eyes. The lips. They were her's I was sure of it.


	96. Rick: Crazy And Old

**Crazy and Old**

It was hard to understand how this woman was able to walk away with a sizable amount of _MY_ father's fortune. I couldn't understand it, and I became unreasonable for a long time. I hired a lawyer I couldn't afford to help figure out if there was a way to fight it and if we can keep this held up in probate court somehow. The lawyer wanted to know why would I do something like that when Senior Grimes was of a sane mind. I had no way of proving that it was done under duress.

The whole thought of millions going to someone that wasn't even family was causing me to go Crazy and aging me quickly. I turned to drinking to ease my mind of thoughts of plotting murder. I know I could eventually convince Shane to have my back, but he would want to first sleep with Michonne, and that made me envious more than murderous. I wanted to sleep with her too. I knew I was older than her by a few years but with the gray starting to creep along the edges of my hairline I wasn't the same man she met a few years ago.


	97. Rick: Gallery

**Gallery**

If there was ever a puzzle that went unsolved, I was surprised to find that pieces led me to her past-time. Museums and Art Galleries. Going through my father things to discover the meticulous calendar of events that held his schedule where it indicated that he always met with Michonne twice a month. Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Wednesdays were at Aarons Art Gallery in Atlanta, and Every other Saturday was spent at a museum.

"Are you stalking me?"

"Yes."

"Interesting. I would never guess that money would induce you to make a move."

"It doesn't. It makes me wonder why a large amount was given to you when-"

"The only person that can answer that would be your father, and he isn't here to answer your concerns. For some reason, you think I have the answer, and this may surprise you, but I don't. I have no idea why your father hated your wife. I have no idea why he would rather give it to me than to you and your sister, Tara."

"Well, the sex must have been very well worth it."

"If we weren't in public, I would slap you for saying that. I have never slept with your father. As I remember telling you a few years ago, I refuse to be second. Your mother was first as is your wife. How it should be. I have the power to review my options. Second is not optional."

"So you at least haven't denied that my father wanted you in that way?"

"So does his son. What is your point?"

"It's crazy for him to leave you with millions for no apparent reason than being and enjoying your company."

"It's even crazier for his son to think being around me for no apparent reason other than I am the CEO of Go-Stop, I am excellent company, an exceptional cook, I tend to be a lot of fun, also very knowledgeable about a lot of things- isn't considered priceless asset in a mate!"

"You are the CEO?"

"I am."

"When did this happen?"

"When he realized he didn't have a better choice."

I didn't know what to do with what she told me. I was out of the loop on a lot of things and how my Dad handled his business affairs was included since I had taken no real interest in the company in question.

The only thing I knew to do was threaten her. I stood close enough to think I could intimidate her but she didn't budge, and she wasn't intimidated by me. She stood her ground and wouldn't look away. She smelled fucking incredible, and I had to fight my urge to kiss her and get slapped or get hit anyway for escalating things. She was mad that I was making a scene.

"I will ruin you. I will so help me God."

"I like to see you try it. You don't scare me."

"You need to be. I am an officer of the law."

"I don't give a damn what type of badge you are hiding behind. You don't police the streets of Atlanta. You are obviously off duty. This is not your jurisdiction and if I happened to be wrong you better lawyer up because if you think I am going to take an ass whooping or the threat of one without retaliating, you are sadly mistaken. You may actually be a man, but you run up on me, you will realize I fight like one. Now you either back the fuck up, or you make the first move."

"Whoa, what's going on here? Everything okay? Do you need me to call the police, Michonne?"

I was out of my mind then. The Art owner was trying to diffuse a situation he knew nothing about, and it snapped me back to the point where I was when Michonne left with my father that night as I sat in the parking lot of the banquet hall. I was charged up with adrenaline mixed with this very primal need to grab her and fuck her and not give a shit about who stood around and watched our live showcase of an impromptu Art exhibition. I was almost positive that she felt the same way.

I knew instinctively this was going to be the driving force for chaos in my life. I wanted her. I wanted Michonne, more than ever.

I still had the art work in my garage. I spent hours just staring at it and the eyes staring back at me. Those were Michonne's eyes. I became more convinced the more I stared at it waiting for the answers to jump out at me.


	98. Michonne: I Earned It

**I Earned It:**

We must be in a very intimate relationship for my goodness gracious to be revealed, and you must be single, or certified background checks done to prove it. I don't do married men. I don't do people who pretend to be single. I don't do unhappily married, and we are separating. I don't do we are separated. I don't discriminate from never married or officially divorced. Those are the only two kinds of men I will consider.

I worked my ass off to get to where I am. I didn't have to use my sex to get it. The shit disturbs me that people think my vagina got me the job. My vagina preference must be noted before or after I say my name. No, it doesn't. I am heterosexual female for the record, but I don't go around announcing it. My name is Michonne Benton, I worked my ass off not my pussy. My pussy only came along for the ride up.

I have a degree. I have a degree from one of the Top Colleges, and I was top of my class. I know my shit. It doesn't hurt to dress well, speak well and keep your personal life private. My goal was to take no prisoners to the top, and that was what I did.

I had Mike and Terry, two uncle Toms chained by their necks. I cut them down when the opportunity arose. They were nothing but dead weight, and they were quick to point out one error of mine to deflect the 150 mistakes that they approved on five ill prepared projects that crossed their desk.

There weren't many of us at this level of business, and it was a shame that it was neither of us trying to help the other.

Something about Senior Grimes kept me motivated. I mean I like the fact that he acknowledged my tenacity but I also liked the fact that I could look up and find him sitting in my office wanting to talk about anything that crossed his mind.

We both shared a love of art, and things just happened from that. He said his wife didn't like the hunt, but she loved what he would bring home from one of his finds.

He was looking for an Art Companion. I became that to him and nothing more. I am certainly not saying he was opposed to some freaky action but we had an understanding that I don't do married men. I am never second.

We kept it that way for years with no problems. I have met his wife, Ella on several occasions to make sure she was okay with me, and she was and never said anything differently.

What the fainting was about was beyond my understanding, and it took awhile for me to find out that she was worried that I wouldn't hold up to my side of the deal. Money makes people do crazy things was her mindset, and the amount left to me was an indication of Senior Grimes possible senility and his son Richard Sinclair Grimes Jr. volatility.

Senior loved his family, and he especially had a soft spot for his only son, Richard. He began to think I would have been a good match for him. I knew a lot about his son and how Senior never liked Lori. He didn't like the fact that she was motivated by money first. She brought nothing to the family, and it puzzled him that Rick would consider Lori, the proper mate.

"Have you ever considered that maybe it's more about loving someone for who they are and not about assets and wealth?"

"You like challenging me."

"You want me to test you, Senior."

"Everyday I tell my Ella that you would have been a better choice for our Richard."

"You are absolutely too kind to me, Senior."

"He says he will come to the Awards Ceremony tomorrow night. I thought I tell you that you _will_ get to meet my bull-headed of a son."

"What are you doing, Senior?"

"I want my son to get a taste of what he is missing out on. Once he meets you he will certainly see he has missed out on a very fine person that you are."

"Your son is married. We have had this conversation more than once Senior. You know I have rules. You haven't gone senile on me. I would like to think if he comes that he is more into having a good time with his father while he has him in good spirits and health."

"If that is how you want to look at things I will allow you that. Now what do you think about this masterpiece?"

I have no clue why I was so nervous. Senior's son was a married man and would more than likely show up with his wife, and I would more than likely be put in a position to find mutual interest with her when possibly there would be none.

According to Senior, she didn't work anywhere, and for the life of me, I had no idea what life of leisure on deputy salary provided. They had a son, Carl. He was in high school. He was smart, but according to Senior, he wasn't Harvard smart, more like a community college smart. I spent a lot of time side eyeing Senior when he would talk about his own family in such a way that indicated he was very disappointed in them all for whatever reason he had in his mind.

I was surprised to see him at the table when I came off the dance floor with a business associate that worked on the 6th floor of Go Stop. He immediately stood up from the table along with Senior who was quick with our introductions. If his wife was there, I didn't notice because he had my full attention. I was looking at what a much younger, leaner Senior Grimes would have looked like years ago. He could certainly get it if he wanted it.

Richard was extremely attractive. Dressed in the black tailored suit, he had my heart racing and my mind thinking if he showed the remotest interest I might have to rethink unhappily married and will separate in the next hour from the spouse. I had to get my shit together quick. I think whatever reaction we were having towards each other was pleasing Senior who sat down with the others and pretended to give his full attention to his Colleague on his left Mr. Monroe who was droning on and on about the new insurance regulations that he swore he warned us all about was coming down the pipeline.

I didn't expect him to want to dance with me and I don't think he expected me to know how to do the basic waltz on the ballroom floor where at least nine other couples were doing the basic steps. There were maybe two taking it to a whole different level. He and I danced very well together. I was pleasantly surprised that he didn't step on my toes and he moved very well. A five-minute basic waltz and he wasn't deterred by the Argentine Tango that had everyone off the floor except for three sets of dancers that included us.

He wasn't shabby with his footwork, and the moves that he was most confident with I took note of and stayed within his comfort level.

I turned my back to him, and he held me close, and we swayed.

"You are better than me at this."

"I know."

"You dance?"

"I am dancing."

"You are really good."

"I would say you need to get out more."

"My father loves to dance."

"I know."

"You two go out a lot together?"

"Dancing? No. Have I danced with Senior before? Yes. He is very smooth. If you were to practice more, you would be quiet like your father."

"Are you asking me out to dance?"

"We are dancing. Your desire to continue to dance is truly up to you."

I continued my footwork and was more or less showy with much more flair and style while keeping in sync with his posture and steps as we oozed sex.

Something was happening between us and I knew I would have to break the spell he had me under as I felt his hand drift to the small of my back along my arms and thighs. The heat from his breath burned my earlobe as I could feel the ghost of his lips as he whispered the next few words that stirred a frenzy of butterflies and Honey Bees in the pit of my stomach. Butterflies excited by the newness and the Honeybees taking his words to heart.

"You have me very intoxicated, Michonne."

"Lift me if you are confident to do so, in one, two, three..."

I was up in the air and lowered with ease. Richard was better than I anticipated. By the end of the dance, I had split my 4k dollar dress in three places at the seams. Served me well, I awoke from the spell I was under.


	99. Michonne: I Cant Mourn With You So Close

I took Senior's death very hard. It came out of nowhere when I was given the news. He was so good to me and was the perfect mentor, and I owe everything to him for allowing me the opportunity to prove myself.

What happened next was unexpected. Our confrontation at the Art Gallery, I had expected a conversation but having it done in such a public way caused me to have my doubts about if I was safe. Money can cause people to consider crazy things.

I had a feeling Rick wanted to kiss me and the way he was looking from my eyes to my lips and back I knew I would probably fuck him right then and there and not give two shits about who was standing around watching our live art. His breath was fresh, and he smelled like he had showered. He was again having me rethink drama in my life that I didn't need, but if he would have kissed me, I am a hundred percent sure I would have kissed him right back.

"Whoa, what's going on here? Everything okay? Do you need me to call the police, Michonne?"

Aaron has good intentions. We were causing a scene with our aggressive stance, but we weren't loud, and Richard knew what was up. I am not the one. This wasn't our first confrontation.

"We have an understanding, don't we Rick?"

"I have to say we do. You want to get coffee?"

"Coffee?"

"I saw a coffee shop when I pulled into the parking garage a block over. You want to join me before I head back to King's County?"

I eyed him really good. His demeanor changed. He softened, and his eyes became a softer blue. I don't know if it was because I used the name he preferred or it was because we had a witness.

I considered his offer. Coffee at 4pm would mean no sleep for me. Caffeine and I have an agreement to only go down my throat between 7am and 12pm. I didn't tell him that, but my order did when I got a bottled water and a pastry.

My phone rang, and it was Aaron making sure I was at the coffee shop, and he said he had the owner using his phone to record that if I came up strangled it was the man in the video. I hung up. I knew Aaron would make phone calls to inform Sasha and Andrea of the incident he witnessed with is own two eyes. He was such a _Queen_.

Rick and I talked for hours. I told him things he didn't even know about his father or a mentioning of something would cause a memory to surface and he would share with me aspects of his childhood.

Rick wanted my phone number. I told him it would be very unwise. He had a family and I told him to go home to them, enjoy them.

Not having my phone number did not deter him. He called me at Go Stop. He arrived at Go Stop. He knew that I still followed my routine of going to Art Galleries and museums. A creature of habit he discovered. Afterwards, we would go to the coffee shop and talk.

The conversation changed from being about his father to finding out more about me, my history, what was going on with me right then and my hopes for the future. I had the opportunity to discover that the man before me was no different from the Senior I had lost. He was just as kind and generous to almost a fault. It was endearing. I asked him about his wife and his son, and he felt more at ease talking about Carl and how proud he was of his son getting accepted into a University. He too thought Carl would have to spend time in a community college.

I had a business trip planned. It was more of getting away and putting some distance between what was developing and if I didn't get away things would certainly get out of hand. I took a leave of absence in hopes that six months away would be enough time to create some distance and get my life and mind in order and for Rick to do the same. I really felt conflicted and I vehemently refused to be second in a man's life while I make him number one in mine. NO. I have done it one time and the shit isn't fun. I will not have my life drained by stressing over why I am sitting alone at a table for two because the bastard decided this night was a good time to work on his marriage. Not again. NO.

It was our last time at the coffee shop, and upon leaving he kissed me, and I kissed him back. There was so much passion, fire in that one kiss that would forever leave a lasting impression of what kissing someone you care about should feel like. I was drowning and losing myself. I was falling in love. My address was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to meet me at my place. I was so close to wanting to take whatever we were doing in front of the coffee shop further.

I was breathless. His lips hovered over mine. He tasted like coffee and the pastry we shared. I needed to come to my senses. I was wavering.

"I am not going to do this with you, Rick."

"Please."

"I can't do this with you."

"Why?"

"Because I want all or nothing. I can live with you being the one that got away. I can live with only imagining what could have been and I prefer it than to knowing I would come second. I would rather imagine in my mind what it would have been like between us. I would rather live with that than the reality."

He leaned down to kiss every word I spoke away. My whole mantra became just words as I pressed him up against the coffee shop window. His grip was firm around my waist. My fingers were buried, griping his soft hair in the back of his head.

We were going to be fucking arrested because he turned me in such a way to have _my_ back against the glass window as we kissed each other with abandon. To feel his arousal against me was such a turn on I wanted him to have his way with me right then and there.

The Coffee shop owner pounded on the window for us to stop and take it elsewhere. The interruption gave me the chance to recover, no matter how slight, to get away from Rick.

"Michonne..."

"I am not going to do this with you."

It was a very bad idea. I had to leave. Rick called after me but I didn't stop. I didn't look back. I got in my white Mercedes and left him standing there conflicted too.


	100. Rick: I Don't Love You or I Am Unhappy?

**Gone**

Every time that I had gone to see Michonne, to be with Michonne I thought about kissing her. I wanted to kiss her and every time we said our goodbyes I would chicken out, lose my nerves. I would spend lots of time just sitting in my parked car talking to myself, criticizing my wanton lust for this woman, hating that I couldn't control the urge to see her or to hear about her day.

She was all I thought about. She was all that I dreamed about too. It was getting out of hand, and I tried to scale back and be more visibly present for Lori. I was there for Carl, but I was creating distance with Lori, and I couldn't stop from doing it whether consciously or subconsciously. I was so wound tight, and the only way to relax was to either make a life-altering decision or continue with the Façade.

Lori had asked me more than once if I was okay. She would ask me if I wanted to talk about it. I would look at her and lie and tell her nothing was wrong and that there was nothing to say.

I had practiced asking my wife for a divorce, but it seemed like a weird request because things weren't bad between us. She hadn't wronged me in any way, and I couldn't figure out how to broach the topic. How do you just leave a person that you promise to love til death? I bounced what was in my head to the only person I knew I could trust-Shane.

"You are going to have to tell her, friend."

"I know."

"The way you just told me you need to say it to, Lori. It is plain and straightforward. Simple."

"Simple?"

"Yeah-That part was a lie. You are in a tight spot, and I kinda hate you told me about it. I mean I have to look at Lori and wonder if you had told her or not. I am privy to some terrible news before she knows about it. You haven't done anything with Michonne other than make trips to Atlanta to spend time with her. You said you haven't kissed her and you haven't had sex or anything, so I think it is in your best interest to leave Michonne out of it. Women always say that the man should leave his wife first. According to them, you are doing the right thing but how to do it is the tricky part. You are going to have to deal with devastation in telling Lori you don't love her or you are unhappy and want to move on to work on yourself. Women will call bullshit either way. I don't know how you just walk away from your marriage by presenting either of those two reasons unless you really don't love Lori anymore or you are so unhappy and need to work on yourself. You may have to be brutal my friend and go with the first choice because the second option indicates a chance for things to turn itself around. Lori can become more receptive, cooks more, gets a job, gives head, clean up twice as much, dress a little sexier, gives more head, takes the trash out herself, wears sexy lingerie every night. And not on special occasions like your birthday, open to adding another woman in the bedroom, gives more head and swallows. You have to be careful because you won't know who you have come home to and cause her to have a nervous breakdown because you still left her. Option one for the win, friend."

I mulled over Shane's advice for a little too long. I didn't tell Shane that I had kissed Michonne. I left it out, and I am not sure he believed me anyway. He couldn't wrap his mind around how could I be ready to leave a reliable car for one I hadn't even test drove. He thought I was heady over the new car smell. I was falling more and crazier in love with Michonne. The fire and passion in that one kiss was enough to confirm that with which my heart was convinced, I needed a woman like her and if by some cruel design I was wrong, I was ready to risk it all to know for sure.

Her. Just her. I craved like a crazy madman.

Michonne wasn't at her job. She wasn't where she would normally be on Wednesday and every other Saturday. She was gone.


	101. INTERMISSION II IS OVER

" _Intermission. Mare Internum._

 _We will have a brief pause now. If this novel were a theater, you could go out into the lobby, wait in line for a drink, or for the bathroom. Give people a chance to admire your clothes, hair, or jewels. Step outside for some air or a smoke. Backstage the crew would be busy transforming the scenery, actors would change their costumes and redo their makeup, Some would be done until final curtain, others awaiting their first entrance._

 _But we're not in the theater, and I am not letting you go outside this story, not really. Where we are is more like a pause between breaths. Whether you're inhaling or exhaling, there's a pause just before, like the pause you can feel more than hear before the tide reverses. Where we are is the point of intersection in the figure eight. Turned on its side the eight becomes the symbol of infinity._

 _You can make this figure with your hips when you dance. Over and over you will return to that moment of balance before your weight shifts from one hip to the other. The balance of this story is about to shift. The scenery is changing, as we make our slow way across Mare Internum. A journey I am not going to describe._

 _When the story begins again, some of the people you have come to know and love, or not, Dido, Bertha, Paulina, Reginus, and Joseph will appear less frequently..._

 _I don't like it when characters fade from the story, so I am apologizing in advance, but life is like that. We leave people and places and times behind. We encounter new ones. Sometimes we can't see the patterns or connections, but they are there, between one breath and the next. In the ebb and flow of tides. In the rhythm of the dance."_

 ** _― Elizabeth Cunningham, The Passion of Mary Magdalen_**

* * *

 **Wait...What?**

Yes. This is a _continuation_ of Intermission I Story called **The Long Long Road**. (Chapter 51 to refresh your memory)

This is what it feels like going down in one of Foxissofoxy rabbit holes (Fox Holes). I've put a pause on S'cream Into My Pillow. I am presenting more of Intermission **One.**

 **But This can't be the end or is it?**

Yes and no. It's a choice for you to make. Sometimes stories are left open ended and generally my stories are with some type of end until I write again. You may find my presentation intriguing or off putting. If you want to enjoy what you are feeling now-Do not proceed. This will only make you want more and if not you may find my other stories to your liking since I have a few in completed status.

 **Intermission? I have never experienced an Intermission in the way you are presenting Intermission. I am wondering if I can keep up.**

I know. This _intermission one_ continuation starts once you turn the page. It is from me Foxissofoxy presented to you for a short period before it takes a life of its own. It is called The Long Long Road. It is **NOT** S'cream Into My Pillow.

 **What does** _The Long Long Road_ **have to do with S'cream Into My Pillow?**

Absolutely nothing. This is an Intermission One continuation. Chapter 51 to Refresh your memory.

 **Fox, I have never experienced an Intermission story and you have given us two.**

I have no idea what other writers are giving to you Dear Reader(s), but I think that you just might want to exit while you can or skip the intermission altogether if you have ideas of a particular symmetry of Richonne or storytelling in general. You will not find it here.

 **What about S'cream Into My Pillow?**

I will continue with the scheduled program that still won't fit your needs as quickly as you may desire but it will be entertaining, I hope. I have written a few chapters but not enough to present just yet. I think my focus is all over the place and I really need to get back to my older stories that have been dormant, Peace Through Chaos is one.

 **Where is the Intermission?**

Yes! Sounds like you want to proceed falling head first into the Fox hole! Yes. Thank you! I appreciate all that dare to re-imagine!

 **What are you doing Foxissofoxy?**

Counting how many people will fall into the Rabbit hole with me now that they are falling...or maybe it's just me. LOL.

* * *

 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me,_  
 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, but_  
 _when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me,_  
 _I'm down in the hole I'm down in the hole_

 _I was_  
 _down in the hole_  
 _down in the hole_

 **The Soul Of John Black**


	102. Before The Goverment Safe Zone

Continuation of The Long Long Road: Starts on Chapter 51

* * *

 **Abigail: Our Lives Before The Government Safe Zone**

"Run, Mama! Run!"

This wasn't the first time, and I don't think it will be anytime soon that I won't reflect on that time in my waking hours or my sleeping dreams.

My boogeyman was real. He was my father, Morgan Chapman.

No one knows about it, and I am and have been encouraged to forget, but I can't. I was scared then. A fear that still keeps my heart racing and my mind frantic thinking the boogeyman is outside my window waiting to come inside.

I can hear my Daddy sometimes when the wind howls in the night and the branches from the trees scrape against my window. He wants inside, and he's mad that we left him out there where he wanders the darkness looking for any sign of life. I turn my nightlight out because I don't want him to think that I am the way.

I sometimes wonder what my Daddy would think about the underground Government Safe Zone. I wonder if the voices he heard would have calmed down knowing that the people that carried the plague could not get inside. There were four levels of checkpoints before anyone that went outside could get back in with the general population.

I am not sure what he would have thought about this place that we are located now called Alexandria. I know my Stepdad Mike wouldn't be happy with my Daddy around. Mama would be pretty mad too because she had moved on and she was tired of looking backward because My Daddy didn't want to look forward. My Daddy didn't like that Mama moved on with another man that treat her nice and he wasn't crazy.


	103. Details From Abigail

**Abigail: Visitation Turned Camping**

My Daddy kept us longer than what he was supposed to. He was only to keep me and my younger brother Andre for a few hours supervised. It was going to be Andre's first year in Kindergarten. Mama was preparing for it, and she needed us back in time to get our book bags ready for the next day. I was going to go in third grade.

My Daddy said we were going to go camping out in the woods. We were really excited about it. Andre was super excited. We envisioned tents, flashlights, campfire and roasting marshmallows and ghost stories.

Bits and pieces I can remember about that day. The heavy scent of pine and the wetness in the air, and the fallen leaves. Orange and green and browns whizzed by when the car finally stopped where the road ended. Argument.

My Mama wasn't happy with the way my Daddy was yelling into the phone.

"I'm the motherfucking man, Michonne. You need to treat me like I am the motherfucking man! I don't give a shit that we are separated. You are supposed to be _my_ wife, woman. I am _your_ man. Treat me like I am a man..."

We left on foot. Andre and I knew not to say anything when our Daddy was agitated the way he was, and he was agitated. We walked and walked, and Andre was tired, and Daddy picked him up and carried him most of the way. By nightfall, we made it to a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

No tent. No campfire. No marshmallows. We got none of that. Our Daddy took us deep in the Georgia woods to a cabin by a stream. We had been there once before but our Mama was with us and Andre was just a baby.

I remember waking up the next day and the day after that and the day after that without our Daddy. He was gone, and Andre and I were hungry. Real hungry. The few things we had we had eaten.

"What are we going to do, Abigail?"

"Wait for Daddy."

"I'm hungry."

"Me too."

"What are we going to do?" Andre asked again.

"Mama would say to get moving, but to leave a trail, so just in case we need to find our way back."

"We are leaving?" Andre questions the idea that never crossed his mind.

"Daddy would say to stay put." Abigail weighed the options was resigned to stay put and was relieved to find a can of Chef Boyardee. With no way to heat it I shared it with my brother straight from the can.

"Mama said if we are ever lost to find help," Andre remembered the time he was lost in the mall. Lost in the woods he realized was entirely different. I realized that it was very _different_.

"We aren't lost. If we go outside that door, we could be if we don't leave some type of trail. I learned that in girl scouts. Break a branch or mark a tree." I spoke assuredly since I was the big sister and plus I had a pocket knife that I found in my Daddy's backpack along with a granola bar. Score!

That day sent us two on an adventure. We forgot the intensity of our hunger after splitting the granola bar. We drank and splashed in the stream that wasn't too far from the Cabin. The water was cool on our skin and tasted so good.

I remember yellows, greens, liquid, pebbles, grass, trees and the wind against our face as we ran along aimlessly without making marks along the way. I forgot to leave a trail.

We had forgotten worry, fear, and anything that should have kept us in place because we were unbound and free. Laughing and smiling.

Andre stopped first. He saw _him_ first.

I stopped second because I saw her coming for us. I was frozen in place. My pocket knife never crossed my mind nor did running. I peed.

POW.

There was a sound that rang in the air, and everything went black.

"What were you two doing way out here?"

"Our Daddy brought us out here."

"Where is he at?"

"I don't know, sir."

I could hear my brother talking, but I didn't recognize the voice he was responding to.

"What do you mean you don't know? Did you wander away from him or your camp?"

"He just left us," Andre responded quietly and with a shrug of his shoulders.

There was silence from the man. I dared to open my eyes to find myself on a cot that smelled worst the more I began to move around. I had my shorts removed along with my underwear. I was covered by an old shirt that must have belonged to the stranger. My clothes, my bottoms were close to the fire to dry.

"What kind of man leaves his children in the thick parts of Georgia to fend for themselves?"

I didn't think he expected my brother who had just turned five to answer that, but Andre did or tried.

"My Daddy isn't well. His mind has gone out to lunch with a bunch of people that no one can hear but him so my Granny says. My mama says if he doesn't take his medication he is a madman."

"Madman. Yes. Only a lunatic would leave his kids way out here."

"Are you a madman too?" Andre asked the white man with a full beard and hair brushed back not by a comb but his constant running his fingers through it to keep it from falling near his eyes that were blue.

"That is still in question. What's your name?"

"Andre. That's my sister you carried. Her name is Abigail. Where you learn to shoot like that, sir? You killed that bear and-Abigail. Abigail is awake. Abigail that bear is dead!" Andre noticed I wasn't passed out any longer. He knew where my mind was being without my bottoms and Andre was quick to reassure me. "Don't worry Abigail, the man made sure I witnessed there was no funny business. He don't like the smell of pee and he had didn't look. Had his eyes closed and his face turned towards me as he worked your clothes down and off. He kept his face towards me, Abigail."

"Your clothes should be dry. I rinsed them for you down in the river. You were out for awhile. I think you were doing more sleeping than anything."

The man was more right than wrong. I couldn't sleep with my mind wondering if my Daddy was going to come back for us. I couldn't sleep knowing my Mama was probably really mad. My mind was everywhere in the night with no phone to call for help and I know my Granny Mabel was going to be really mad too when the news got to her. He handed me my underwear and shorts and he and Andre turned a way for me to get dressed.

This cabin was much smaller. Wasn't decorated and didn't have much of anything. After spending time there I wondered how the man wasn't lonesome. He asked a lot of questions and Andre wasn't shy about answering and the same for the stranger. I think he liked Andre. Said Andre reminded him of his son.

We spent the whole day with the man who skinned and gutted the bear. He didn't seem to mind us following him around nor with us asking questions.

The next day he made it his purpose of finding out where we were staying and if there was a possible search party. One thing for certain, Andre and I had no clue from which we came, but we were very grateful to him for finding us and saving our lives.

He heard her first. I heard her the same time that my brother Andre did.

"Abigail...Andre..."

Andre was determined to find out his name, and when he told us, we had promised to keep his secret until we couldn't keep it any longer from our Mama. We told our Mama everything.

My Mama was looking for us. I could almost make out her voice. We were close, and he was gone.

Andre never got to go to Kindergarten that year. Nor did I enter the 3rd grade because we were still out there living in those woods with my Daddy and Mama.


	104. Abigail Tells Deanna

My Daddy used to hurt my Mama. He was going more and more crazy. It was scary to see it, watching him not be himself.

Now that I am older I have things that come back in my mind like a tidal wave and it affects how I love. My Granny always said that there is a difference between loving deeply and loving completely. My mama did both in one lifetime.

My Daddy kept my Mama in chains. One clamped on her ankle and the other to her right wrist. He wanted to keep her unbalanced. He said it was his way of neutralizing the enemy. She gave up lashing back. Mama stopped fighting to get away from him when her main goal was to protect us. Daddy would have long stretches of not knowing where we were and who we were and go off into the woods to think about it.

One time I found the keys to set Mama free, but it was a game to Daddy who began to realize that it was really boys against the girls. He trusted Andre more than he did me. We stayed there because it was the safest place at the time. It was a safe place. It was the safest for us, then.  
...


	105. What Andre Tells Deanna

**Andre: Bang! Bang! Bang!**

Abigail ran away. She ran away and was gone, and Mama cried. She cried because she was afraid of what may have happened to Abigail alone in the woods. It took two days for her to find him. She brought him to help us. To help with Daddy.

Daddy was going crazy, and he was mad too. He was angry that Abigail left to bring back Zombies. He said Zombies were going to follow Abigail back and he was going to have to kill her for doing it

It was the man with the beard that helped my Mama while my Daddy went somewhere in the woods to talk to himself and to pace around.

It was him that saved us from being out there. He said his name was Grizzly Adams and we had told Mama about him. He saved us from the bear, and he saved us from my Daddy too.

The keys were easy for him to reach and he just took the chains off. My Mama cried and hugged him for helping her, us.

No sooner Mama was free my Daddy was standing in the doorway.

There was a fight. A struggle for the gun. It was his gun, and my Daddy was afraid of it being pointed at him. He was calm. When my Daddy is quiet, he is the scariest.

Mr. Grimes had it knocked out of his hands while he was fighting my Daddy to not take the gun from him. The gun fell on the floor of the Cabin and my Mama picked it up and shot him. She shot my Daddy, and he fell to the ground. She shot him again and again and again. He was dead.


	106. How I Met Their Mother

**Rick: How I Met Their Mother**

Lori was having an affair. She was cheating on me, and I had enough of the lie that she had broken it off with the other man. I had the gun in my hand when I found her in bed with her best friend's husband, Pete. Lori's best friend was Jessie.

I saw red. Then I blacked out. When I had come to, I realized I was holding the smoking gun. I had shot Lori and Pete. I-  
I was on the run. I headed for the thick Georgia woods where I use to go as a young boy with my father. I knew of a cabin there.

It was at the time of the plague. It hadn't gotten as bad at that point, but it was beginning to pick up steam on the news and the radio.

I was the law and on the wrong side of it. I knew the right aspect of the law would be after me and I had a headstart. I tossed my wallet over the bridge and left the police cruiser miles away in a random parking lot. The only person who would've known where to find me would have been Shane, my patrol partner. He never came looking, and I am hundred percent sure he was asked and tasked to find me.

By the fifth month, I thought I lost my mind when I saw the kids running around without a care. Unsupervised from what I could tell. I had come across a mother bear with her cubs earlier that day, and sure enough, she was after the kids who stumbled too close.

I had the kids with me for just a couple of days because they didn't know which way they had come and I wasn't trying to be found out.

Abigail was worried about her mother. She was worried about her father too. Andre was just more curious than worried. He had a lot of questions about what I was doing in the woods alone and if I had a family.

I was able to trace their tracks from where they came and from the distance I could see a woman. African American like the kids frantically calling for them.

I pointed the kids in the direction to go, and I was going to make my way as far back to where I was living to not be seen.

"What is your name?" Andre had asked me.

"You don't need to know my name." I insisted.

"Why do you want to be unknown?" Andre asked. I had to scratch my head at his line of questioning and his desire to know who I was that fed him and kept him safe and out of harm's way for the short time that I had him and sister.

"Didn't we have this conversation last night?"

"You still didn't tell me your name and Abigail, and I can keep secrets."

"Well, I don't know how true that is if you told me everything about your parents and yourselves if you know anything about keeping secrets."

"We were never told by our parents that what we shared should be kept as a secret. If your name is a secret, we can keep it. Right, Abigail?"

"Abby was the main one telling everything about your family history."

"Nothing she said was a lie. I can vouch for it. I think she probably said things because she felt she could trust you. Right, Abigail? I trust you too." Andre was trying to assure me.

"Your mother is calling for you. My name is-Grizzly Adams. Now go!"

I didn't look back to see if they were moving in the direction of their family. I just began putting foot distance between the children and me.

I ventured a couple of times to see what I could see of them and the last time I thought for sure I was viewed by the mother and I made it my last time. I became careless. Reckless. I was seeking the kids to have the chatter. I missed it more than ever, and the lonely feeling was almost unbearable.

No more than a month and a half later I had Abigail. She had come back, and it made me more paranoid than ever that she was going to have me found out and soon I would have hounds if her family knew about me or seen a picture of me.

I was aware I no longer looked like the clean-cut officer that may flash across television screens. I was more like Grizzly Adams with a full grown beard living off the land with my rabbit traps and very modest accommodations and rations inside a much smaller cabin than the one the kids were living some miles away.

Abigail was crying and begging me to help. I wasn't sure what I was to help with, but she was asking me to save her Mom from her Dad. Said her Dad had her Mama chained and that she was bleeding this time and it wouldn't stop.

Chained? I couldn't wrap my mind around it and I didn't waste time. I got my hand gun. It was loaded. I carried Abigail mostly on my back, piggyback style for the sack of time and not wanting her to struggle to keep up with my longer strides.

For a moment I think she had nodded off to sleep. The distance from where I was camped and where she was camped wasn't a stones throw a way be any means.

When we finally got to the Cabin and the coast was clear because I could see her father walking into the woods screaming his head off about being the man and that no one can take that away from him, not even Michonne.

I had put Abigail down and it was as she described. Her mother was chained and balled up on a cot bleeding from an open cut or wound that I wasn't sure how it was inflicted. Andre was trying to hold pressure on it. The gash was on her thigh. She was surprised to see me. She was frantic and I was mesmerized. Up close she was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. My whole thought and mindset startled me. Here there was a woman chained and needing my help and all I saw was her eyes and cheekbones and the shape of her lips.

"I told you Mama, I would bring Grizzly Adams. I told you. He is going to save us."

"Please! The keys. The keys are over there on the very top shelf stuffed way in the back. Please." She commanded.

Her voice woke me from my trance and I did find the keys. She pointed out the one that would unlock and the sound of the click was relief and anticipation for a show down if he were to soon return.

"You must be Grizzly Adams."

"And you are the woman no longer chained." I responded back. "I can help you with the bleeding but we are going to have to get out of here or take care of him somehow." _Him_ was the man that would soon come back.

"Worse thing I could have done was to actually chain myself so he could calm down and not hurt the kids because the voices were beginning to tell him things."

"Voices?" I questioned.

"He's level 10 schizophrenic."

"Level 10? I didn't know there was levels." I knew a few random things but I was surprised by what she was telling me.

"There isn't but he is Level 10 and we need to get out of here or he will kill us all. He is a skilled fighter."

"Well, I like to see how well he does against a bullet."

There he was standing in the doorway. He was skilled. Very skilled that I lost the gun and he lost his life.


	107. Rick Tells Deanna

**Rick: The Heart Wants What The Heart Wants**

Yes, I guess you would have a point, I had killed before the plague actually took over the world, but those were my reasons, and as you see, Lori didn't die nor Pete. They survived and anyone after them I spared no mercy because people that are living have become more and more acclimated to a world with no order other than being on top or bottom.

I wasn't about to lose the upper hand. Just not how the world outside these gates operates. Justice is for the people that feel justified. Savagery shows no sympathy nor does it need to have a reason.

Outside those gates isn't what I fear if that is where my destiny lies. My fear is living on the inside contained and forced to fit these rules that restrict how I feel and the person I feel for the most. I feel nothing for Lori and no matter if I am on the inside or outside, nothing will change that.


	108. Grizzly Adams is Rick Grimes

**Michonne: Grizzly Adam In The New World**

The plague was happening. I tried to keep Abigail and Andre shielded from the news and what was going on. My Granny came and stayed with them while I spent a lot of time being debriefed about what would happen to the top-level government officials and that included my husband, Mike.

I had gotten married 3 years before the world went to hell in a handbasket and began a new life with my two children that I had from a previous relationship.

Morgan was their father. He had supervised visitation since he had been able to get his schizophrenia under control and he had been taking his medication regularly for 6 months. Per court order, his visits were organized with Abigail and Andre as long as his mother was present at all times and if that wasn't possible for whatever reason, there was a court-appointed social worker.

He had taken the kids without permission that day. He had taken them, and with the chaos, the police had their hands full with people biting each other and wreaking havoc that Morgan and my kids were at the bottom of their list of concerns.

I was frantic. I didn't even tell my husband where I was going or why. He wasn't around to stop me or convince me of another option like coming with me. I was worried out of my mind, and I had to get my babies. There was no time to argue with Morgans mother who was afraid to open her door, afraid I was going to bite her.

A call from Morgan had me pulled over onto the side of the road. He had taken the kids to safety. I asked to speak to Abigail and Andre. Morgan allowed it and from what I gathered safety was the Cabin. We had only taken the kids once before Morgan, and I went our separate ways. I could not compete with the voices he heard.

The Cabin was located in the very deepest part of Georgia Forest, and it was a place that Morgan and I use to go when we were young and idealistic and in love. I wasn't young, idealist, in love with Morgan I was pissed off with him. I could tell he was off his pills and I wondered how long he wasn't taking them. How was this not monitored?

It was a four-hour hike, and with the kids, I could just imagine how long it would have taken Mike to have the kids up there. Deep in the forest, there wasn't a signal for the phone, and I took a chance and looking back, if I had to do all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

We had spent 3 years underground. I wasn't able to get the clearance for my Granny Mabel, and she insisted that we go and stay where it was safest. I had special arrangements made for her to be there in Alexandria.

I wasn't aware that the man in my classroom was the same man that saved my kids in the woods and he eventually saved me. I mean he was shaved and dressed in NWA academy attire. His eyes were strangely familiar. The way he kept looking at me always threw me off and caused me to forget what my day's lecture was going to consist of, and it was becoming more and more evident that I was going to have to have a conversation after class with him to find out what was his problem.

"How many people have you killed?"

"Killed?"

The class had gotten quiet. I was being questioned about committing murder which in the New World Order, adultery was equal to the crime of killing a human and both meant exile if convicted by a committee of one's peers and the spouse who was cheated on. I was being scrutinized, and my authority was being challenged. Later, I realized it was my integrity that was being called to question.

"You haven't killed any of the walking dead even though I have heard rumors that you have with a Katana."

"Walking Dead?"

"Zombies are what other communities call them, and a few still call them the infected but here in Alexandria we call them the Walking Dead. Walkers. So my question to you- how many of the living have you killed?"

My heart raced. I had no idea why I felt this man knew my secret. He seemed to have the answer, and he was toying with me. I wasn't going, to tell the truth, because then I too would be judged by the old laws of the old world and would be considered some type of hypocrite trying to bring advancement to the change of rules for the new world when I wasn't held accountable for the murder that I committed.

"Please elaborate why an answer from me is necessary to the topic at hand-"

I had them all in assigned seats so I could eventually place a name to a face, he was in the third-row 5th seat from the back of the class.

"Shane Walsh?" I questioned the name and the face because I thought I knew the face that went with that name and this name didn't match up. Shane Walsh was in the fourth row, 5th seat back. He sat up straight with me calling on him, and he wasn't the one that spoke or questioned me it was actually his friend, Rick Grimes.

"Why are you and Rick not sitting in your assigned seats?"

"We were hoping by now you would or could tell the difference between us. He's the married man with a girlfriend on the side, and I am the single guy looking for action." Shane declared. He was clearly joking based on the few chuckles.

They weren't taking this seriously, and the class found Shane to be humorous compared to the dullness of my class material.

"There is an exam tomorrow. It will count, and if you fail this test, it will end your goal or this once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of something bigger than you and me. To fail this, you will not have the chance to promote the way we police and hold up the new laws. Everyone is dismissed."

My annoyance was evident on my face, and the class was breaking up to stand and leave. I went to my desk and began to feel relief in having avoided a loaded question that I had planned to deny if forced.

The classroom was quiet and I thought I was alone. Not once did I look up to ensure that I was the only one in the room when I heard my classroom door close. His voice almost had me jump out of my seat. There was something very familiar about him.

"I am not surprised that the class didn't care if you have killed or not."

"What?"

I glanced up to see him still sitting at the desk that was assigned for Shane Walsh. I had no idea where he was going with his statement.

"Our world has changed. Changed in a way that I have been given a second chance. I wasn't held accountable, and if I could take it back and if I had responded differently like take all my stuff from the house and moved on, I wouldn't have been in those woods to kill the bear that would have mauled your kids no doubt about it. I wouldn't have been there to rescue you from that bastard of a husband that-"

I cut him off. I knew who he was. He was confirming that we knew each other. He remembered and so did I. There was nothing to hide. He was there. Rick Grimes. I had his name branded to more of my heart than I cared to admit and his face etched forever into my memory.

"He wasn't my husband. He was the father of my children. We were never married. I had two kids by that crazy son of a bitch, and I wasn't going to go down without a fight. My kids are my everything. _They_ are my life. I am glad you were there. I am grateful that you had rescued us, and I don't regret killing him. I don't regret putting him out of his misery."

We sat there just like that. My words hung in the air and his eyes captured my mind and squeezed the pit of my stomach as my heart began to race. I marveled at his face and the way he was sitting at the desk. Grizzly Adams cleaned up very well.


	109. Michonne: Nostalgia of Blue Skies

**Michonne: Nostalgia From the Blue Skies - continuation: The Long Long Road**

* * *

"We have supplies. My Ex-Morgan made sure..." Michonne's words trailed off.

Michonne lost her train of thought. It had only taken two weeks for her to gain enough energy and for the pain to subside almost completely from parts of her body. She couldn't control her growing desire for civilization, to go back to the world that awaited.

The man who she thought would come with them was going to remain in the woods. She wanted to offer Grizzly everything that was left, and even then she felt like it wasn't enough when she realized he was trying to convince her to stay.

Michonne tried to fight a disturbing battle that waged inside of her. She knew that he wanted _more_ and if he would have told her exactly she would have figured a way to get it or give it to him. She was handing over the satellite radio. There was only one station that presented dire news that the plague was worse than anyone could have ever imagined. The brink of madness had engulfed the earth and there wasn't any way to stop it from spreading rapidly.

"You don't have to go." His voice was barely above a whisper.

Michonne saw right then more than she could have imagine. Need was the most evident in Grizzly's eyes and it was also laced in his voice that was seeking control from cracking. He was melting her resolve which caused her to look away from him.

"I do have to go. I can't just stay here. My kids. My grandmother. _I_ can't just stay here. _We_ can't just stay _here_."

"How are you going to protect them on your own? How are you going to make sure you don't get attacked and still keep Abby and Andre safe?"

Michonne had no words as she gazed back into his eyes that were pleading for her to think about what she was doing. He was close enough to her as they stood on the outside of his cabin while her children were on the inside of their sleeping bags fast asleep, safe.

She marveled at the wild beard and his head of hair that needed a good trim in order for him to stop running his hands through it so often. His curly strands were practically falling into his eyes. He had a few grays mixed in with his darker strands with sparse wisp of the lighter color in and around his beard. Michonne wondered just how old he was and what he probably looked like without it. His teeth were still white and unchipped.

Weighing her options, she knew he was right, but she had a husband who was probably worried sick. She was losing time, and soon she would lose her reason to want to leave. If he kept looking at her the way he was she would lose her reason, faster than she anticipated.

Grizzly Adams had taken a liking to her. Michonne could tell. She wasn't naive. She sensed it. There was an immediate ease in how they communicated. She had asked him why he was alone in the woods and he said it was the same reason that she was hesitant to go to the authorities to report what had happened.

"I killed my kids' father."

His silence was her answer on his reason why he was in the woods as they sat quietly around an actual campfire that he made for the children's delight in having an opportunity to actually roast stale marshmallows. They sat together the following evening amused with watching Abigail and Andre, it was better than staring at the flames when their conversation seemed to bring silence and deep reflection.

"Why'd you do it?" Michonne asked out of the blue it seemed.

"The same reason she felt the need to have her friend Jessie's husband bang her. It just happened." Rick's tone was immediately laced with venom.

"You are crazy." Michonne declared.

"Claims the lady that was given chains to clasp around her neck and feet because a madman told her too?"

"Are you trying to make me mad?"

"I am a madman. I would love to have a mate." Grizzly teased her.

Michonne cut her eye at him just as he was doing the same to her. She could see a smile grow on his lips as he chewed on a long blade of wild grass. They shared the same wood log that they sat on together. Side by Side.

"It was a crazy thing to do." Grizzly insisted.

"I was desperate," Michonne admitted. "It was crazy too." She agreed.

"I came home that day and found myself out of my mind. I was in a rage. It's like the trust is gone, but you want so badly for it to be there. To trust again. She said she ended things. She said we were going to be a family again and that she would do better by my son and me-"

"You have a son?"

"Yes. He's a year older than Andre over there."

"Aren't you worried about him?"

"I am. With everything going on outside of these woods I am. Speaking of then, I didn't factor him in my actions. I just saw red, and then everything went black."

"They were in your home?"

"I pushed open the door. I remember hearing the sounds. I don't remember having the gun in my hands. I don't remember firing a single shot."

"Mama, me and Andre are going to get ready for bed." Abigail stood up holding a blackened marshmallow.

"You two do that." Michonne smiled.

"Hey what about the marshmallows?" Grizzly asked.

Abigail and Andre both shrugged their shoulders and tossed their sticks into the fire.

"They don't like marshmallows." Michonne laughed. "They just wanted to roast them."

Michonne placed her attention on her children. "You know the drill. Brush. There is the water for cleaning. Just use enough to rinse and gargle when finished. Toothpaste is on Grizzly Adams table."

"Goodnight, Mama. Goodnight Grizzly Adams." The two kids said in unison before sprinting off a few feet to go inside the cabin.

"They are in good spirits. With everything that happened the children are resilient." Grizzly reflected and surmised aloud.

"Or they become some jacked up adults because of it." Michonne sighed.

"You are a good mother, Michonne. Your kids are glad to be safe and have their mother safe. Everything else is coincidental and or necessary."

"I will take _needed_ for the win." Michonne bumped her shoulder into Grizzly.

"Michonne...Babe?" Mike waited for his wife's mind to come to the present.

"Yeah?" Michonne answered taking her eyes from the window where she was looking out at the makeshift area that was going to be the temporary training area for new recruits. She could see the area from her bedroom. The only item left to clasp was her gold ear-rings when she turned towards the voice of her husband.

"I am going to be gone all day to day." Mike reminded.

"Alexandria?"

"Yes." Mike smiled at the woman who he loved without a doubt in his mind.

"A _nice_ house, Mike." Michonne tone was serious with her emphasis on the word 'nice'.

"I know, Michonne. I know your requirements. A roof. Walls. Doors that lock. Washer and Dryer. Decent furnishings and a very nice mattress."

"The mattress is what you want." Michonne giggled. "I want curtains."

"I'm going to meet the citizens of Alexandria. I'm hoping to get a good feel of the area and try to place names with faces."

"They couldn't ask for a better person. You and your smarts will definitely keep harmony."

"While my wife teaches I think this is going to go very well. The laws aren't hard to abide."

"Stop and frisk? The threat of being detained and or quarantined. In the old world remember Ebola. How it was difficult to get people to sit their asses down long enough without them citing the constitution and their rights?"

"It may take two generations but the change has happened and with acceptance there is a glimmer of freedom."

"Hope. Freedom is a joke. The only freedom is once you close your door to the outside world and even then you are trapped by the walls that hold you inside. True freedom is being able to walk into the woods and never coming back. Living life the way you want within your own terms. Not asking, not telling, just living. That's freedom."

Mike was silent. He didn't know who this woman was before him as she spoke those words into the air but it wasn't his Michonne. His Michonne would have never spoken in a manner to reveal that she didn't buy into the New World Order.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I have never heard you speak like that before." Mike stood before her with a surprised look on his face.

"Come on, Mike. A law against infidelity? That is one I am pulling off the top of my head."

"There is a reason for it, Michonne. Have you forgotten?"

"Destructive behavior cannot be conducive to a productive society. Article 123.76. Signed and authorized into law 2020 by Deanna Monroe and the five thriving communities within eastern and southern borders. Certified and stamped by our President. A President that still resides underground." Michonne shook her head. Her jewelry box lid was open. She closed it shut.

"I am talking about speaking against the laws that have been decided. That is against the law. There is no longer freedom of speech, Michonne."

"Are you telling me I cannot speak freely to my husband? My very own husband in the confines of this hot box that we live in?" Michonne questioned, taken aback.

"Trailer. We need to be thankful to the Hilltop for showing us such hospitality. As far as speaking freely to me-."

"Do you want to arrest me, Mike?" Michonne cut through the chase.

Mike knew he was within his rights to actually arrest his wife and bring her to trial but he wasn't going to do that. He had to warn her. Verbal warning.

"I'm not going to arrest you. I am going to tell you that such talk will end right now and to never be spoken of again." Mike spoke firmly.

Michonne tipped her head slightly to the side, wondering if she heard him correctly. She did. With out another word she walked past him and out of the bedroom to the main room. She found her keys to the four wheeler, she grabbed her helmet that hung by the front door along with newly accessorized Katana.

"Michonne, I am not trying to piss you off. I-."

She was already out the door and the slamming of it was every indication that she wasn't happy.

It was nice to be outside. The air. Recycled air was a thing of the past now that they were living above ground. Michonne wasn't surprised to find Sasha lingering around the newly delivered cargo. Four wheelers.

The Four Wheelers that were for the use of the NWA officers that will not only police their own communities but will be part of a larger group that will cross wide terrain to take out the infected where they were encountered. They had weapons, ammunition, vehicles and now they had to get the men and women ready to take on the challenge.

Sasha was one of the first graduates. Very intelligent and highly motivated. She was a serious sharp shooter and received high marks for effort in both hand to hand combat and agility training. Sasha was Michonne's star pupil.

"Where are we going today, Captain?" Sasha greeted Michonne.

Admiration was in Sasha's eyes when seeing the African American woman stroll up like a badass. The scowl suited her. She wasn't aware of a tiff between Michonne and her husband that began just a few minutes ago. Michonne didn't share much of her life with anyone but she was a very good listener.

"We?" Michonne questioned.

Sasha followed Michonne further inside the Warehouse that had at least 100 4wheelers that took a couple of months to ship and when they arrived they were only coming 5 to 10 at a time. The information was undisclosed from whom, how and now the why was evident with the NWA markings all over the transporters that were lined up, numbered.

"I've been on watch for the last 8hours. I've been banished to this boring ass community and I want out." Sasha declared her unhappiness. She was still dressed in her all black uniform. Blue was for training. Black was a sign of a Graduate from the NWA academy. Sasha was a graduate.

"Out?" Michonne wasn't sure of Sasha's meaning.

"Yeah. I want Alexandria and I can't go unless I have a husband. A mate. The only way to live there you have to have someone and reproduce or have reproduced. I haven't done either."

"From my understanding there are more than Alexandria and the Hilltop. There is a new community that just petitioned for recognition and it is headed by Aaron and Tara." Michonne offered options off the cuff. It was only by chance she overheard that there was a thriving community of 200 that was headed by Aaron and Tara.

"I'm not gay. I am not a lesbian."

"What?"

"Aaron is the one that helped my group to find Alexandria. He was under the impression that we were couples but we weren't coupled up. He thought Alexandria would be the best place for us and then the truth came out that Tyrese was actually my brother and-"

"You're messing around with your brother?" Michonne was shocked by what was being told to her.

"No. No. To get into Alexandria. We had Shane. He was our first leader out there way before we found safety. He found his friend Rick who had his wife and two kids. They were instantly let in along with Maggie and Glen. Alexandria accepted them with open arms. It was the rest of us that had to quickly lock hands with someone. Anyone. I had my brother. He was pushing me to go for Shane or Daryl but I was too slow. Andrea had Shane and Aaron was locking hands with Daryl. Rosita had Abe and it left Eugene and Carol already locked hands with him."

Michonne had no idea of who these cast of characters were but she felt the anxiety that a situation like this would have caused.

"We all have been trying for Rick though." Sasha admitted slightly ashamed.

"I thought you said he was married? He had a wife and kids with him?" Michonne questioned if she was following the story correctly or if she misheard.

"Rick and _his_ family. No one said anything to stop them from getting in. We all knew the truth about him and his wife. All you had to do is stay quiet and observe. I mean the whole time out there they were NOT together by any means."

"Sounds to me that you didn't move fast enough or make your intentions known. I have no idea why you guys didn't discuss this before hand. It had all the makings of odd man out. What a sucky situation."

"Daryl made it known that he wasn't with Aaron. He called bullshit and blew everyone's cover except for Rick's. Maggie and Glen were the only legit. Daryl's staying at the Kingdom."

"Daryl's not gay?"

"Aaron is trying to get as many people to join his community. Out of us all he only got Tara."

"You have to have at least 1k thousand people to have recognition. 2k to have a functioning government in the eyes of the NWA. Based on those numbers I would say Aaron and Tara have their work cut out for them."

Michonne mounted her all black 4 wheeler embossed with the NWA emblem. She reached inside the lift up storage and retrieved her gloves. Her newly found Katana harnessed and resting behind her.

"I'm going with you."

"I'm going to the Kingdom. I have official letters to hand deliver to those who have been approved for the program. From the coordinates it is about 40 minutes away." Michonne informed Sasha. The thought of having a companion, a working companion out with her for official business was an idea that she didn't rebuff.

"It is at least two hours away." Sasha countered.

"We are not taking the roads. Reason for these 4 wheelers."

Michonne waited for Sasha to prep and within seconds they had the motors revving. The Hilltop community gates were opened and quickly closed with their departure and would repeat with their return.


	110. A Kiss To Remember

**Rick: A Kiss To Remember**

* * *

"How's your leg?" Grizzly asked the woman sitting next to him. He couldn't help staring at her lips when she spoke so he decided to focus on something else that wasn't much better and that was her lower half.

"Well, it's not infected." Michonne smiled. She realized that he finally broke eye contact with her.

"Good. Since you stopped me from looking after it. Nice to know." Grizzly turned his attention to the fire that burned and the snapping of the flames as he threw another log in to the middle.

"I had to stop you from looking after it. You were beginning to look after other things, Grizzly." Michonne chastised.

"I was not." Grizzly denied sheepishly.

"You were too." Michonne insisted.

"Your injury was on your thigh. I was looking at your leg."

"But your hand traveled from my thigh to my knee. The following day from my thigh to my calf. A few days later it went from my thigh to the inside of my thigh."

"I was making sure you still had sensation."

"I am not paralyzed. Be honest, Grizzly."

"You have soft skin." He admitted.

"Not that. That you have roaming hands."

"You could have told me to stop."

"It's my fault?"

"No. I am not saying that. If the kids weren't coming in and out, I wonder if you would have ever told me to stop. I don't recall at any point in my exploration that you were uncomfortable?"

"It wasn't about me being uncomfortable. It is about you becoming more and more comfortable. I was surprised that you had the gall."

"So I could have done more?"

"What?"

"It wasn't about your comfort it was about me being comfortable which means you would have been okay with seeing how comfortable I was touching you?"

"I've seen how you look at me." Michonne found the flames more interesting than giving the man with the most intense blue eyes another second longer stare down.

"How do I look at you?" Grizzly asked.

"Typical man."

"Huh."

"Huh, what?"

"I am your typical man?" Grizzly asked slightly confused.

"How long have you been out here, Grizzly Adams? From the look of you, I would guesstimate you have been out here for some time now. Half a year minimum. No woman out here. Probably the longest stint you have gone without sex, I bet?"

"You bet wrong. I have gone longer without sex."

"How long?"

"There has been some dry spells."

"How long?" Michonne insisted to know.

"The time my wife was pregnant. She had me going without for 8 months, and that is counting after the delivery. Another time it was 10 months and-."

"What kind of prison hell were you in?"

"Prison hell? It's called marriage. If you are married long enough you will experience it I am sure."

"That is not healthy."

"How long have you been married to your new guy?"

"Two years and the longest we have gone without sex has been a week."

"A week. How long have you been away stranded up here with the madman?"

"Four months."

"He didn't try?"

Michonne knew that he was referring to Morgan. Her Ex.

"No."

It was the truth.

Grizzly didn't know what to do with the information, and Michonne didn't know what to do with her admission either. They both were horny at that moment, and it was getting more and more awkward.

"You have soft skin."

"I'm married Grizzly." Michonne warned.

Her eyes were on his lips that seemed to move closer. The facial hair and the close proximity that they sat together on the log had Michonne very curious to have it against her face. She wondered if it was soft or slightly coarse.

"I know."

"What are you doing?" Michonne was curious to what was happening or about to happen.

"Nothing that you don't want me to do?"

"What is it that I want you to do?"

"You want me to kiss you."

It was the most tender kiss that the two had ever experienced. It lingered, tingled and stung. There was a sense of uncertainty after the first kiss. If they were to proceed would they have the self control to stop.

The world began to shrink, and the treed landscape began to fade where it was now a centralized focus of a man and a woman sitting on a log with a small amount of apprehension that was drummed away by the pounding thuds from each of their hearts.

His hand lightly touched the side of Michonne's face. It was the side that had the flicker of flames illuminating her beauty with glowing orange hues that bounced and flickered while the moon held high regard. Her tongue would forever remain in his memory, sweet from the roasted Marshmallows her children offered her, and she consumed. One by one. Kiss after kiss.

Grizzly remembered that time and he longed for it...

"Rick... Hey, man! Where the hell did you go off to in your mind? We have to meet the new Sheriff. There's a new Sheriff in town. I've always wanted to say that." Glen recalled a long ago western he had watched when the world was full of redundancy.

The new Sheriff. It was a rude awakening for Rick and Shane who were playing cops in the community and they were recognized as such for awhile until things got out of hand. It was his first instance of almost exile. He had gone completely mad for a short stint. He ended up killing the only community doctor. This was his second time at murder and this time he really did kill Pete in the streets of Alexandria with onlookers viewing the bloodbath. The only thing that saved him was that he had Deanna's blessing because her husband was killed at the hands of Pete.

Rick was holding up the post while Glen tried to position it to reinforce the wall. The two men had spent every morning along with a few others increasing the size of Alexandria by extending the wall out as the community grew and became more capable. Healthy and able-bodied men and women were the most desirable. Everyone, man, woman, and child were expected to pull their weight to live and thrive in the now recognized community that was multiplying every week with new people that have been vetted by a system that only a select few were privy too.

The goal for Rick was to stay and remain under the radar. The new rules and laws that were talked about could easily have him be the first, to have tested on, if he didn't reel in his temper and his disregard for those who claimed to be in charge. These were the very people that had never once had put down the dead or kill the living. They never had come face to face with a kill or be killed. He found it very hard to let go of that mantra with the fear that if something happens again he wouldn't be quick enough to make the choice.

There was only one reason he was allowed through the gates, and it was because he was with a woman and two kids. He represented the family. A family. He represented a chance at a life and opportunity to thrive. Survive. It was pertinent that the family unit survived. That was what Alexandria represented. Anything else could find another place. Infidelity was a law that could have a person on the outside of the gates, exiled.

He and Lori had to continue the Façade that they were happily married. It was far from the truth, and Lori had threatened to reveal their secret until she found out that they could both be sent out to exile and the children could remain within the safety of Alexandria. What it took to get to the safe zone was nothing short of miraculous without wanting to strangle her to ensure of her demise the second time around.

"Carl's your son." Lori stated. She had finished folding the laundry. The basket sat at her feet. His clothes were the last that she folded. She had paused when doing so, giving Rick the impression that he would have to fold his own laundry.

"I have never doubted that, Lori."

"Judith's your daughter." Lori reminded.

"That is what I doubt." Rick scoffed.

"We had sex the day-"

"Lori, I know there was a time that I had sex with you. I am very capable of remembering when and it was infrequent compared to you and Pete."

"It makes you feel good to consistently throw that in my face. I have every reason to feel a certain way about you." Lori spat back.

"It makes me giddy inside to know that Pete is the fucking doctor in this crazy ass town and you and his wife Jessie just picked up where you two fucking left off. I promise you, I thought I killed you both. Instead, my cheating wife is in a coma while the Zombie Apocalypse is happening around her and not one walker wanted to visit her hospital room and take a big chunk out of her throat." Rick glared at the woman who just couldn't let the sleeping dog lie.

"Hmmm, are we having a Lover's quarrel?" Carol steps inside of the home shared by the Grimes. The door was open and the screen was unlocked.

"How much did you hear?" Lori asked Carol.

"Only the part about having a chunk out of your throat." Carol smiled innocently. She had heard a lot. She had heard more than she would ever reveal. The long, long road to get here was enough time to put pieces to the puzzle together to know that the two people that shared the four bedroom model home that existed for the sole purpose of keeping people indebted in the old world couldn't shelter them from the need to be apart.

"What do you need?" Lori asked. She was curt. She didn't care if she had come off as impolite. She had known Carol since they became a group on the outside of the gates and Carol wasn't on her side. Carol favored Rick and would follow him if he told her to come along with him.

"Your husband." Carol responded with a hint of delight in just saying those words to get under Lori's skin.  
Carol continued giving her attention to Rick who was seated in the living room, "There's a new family that will be moving from the Hilltop here. The husband is going to be the new Sheriff. Yale graduate from what I hear. Weird selection by old world standards but I guess this new world needs book smarts more desirable than common sense that you can only learn from being out there with them." Carol was referring to the Walking Dead.

"What does this have to do with me?" Rick asked. He knew that his core group still looked to him as the unofficial leader. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to just live and breathe without the responsibility of others that would follow him to the edge of the earth. He was not a Savior. He removed his beard hoping to stave off the effect he seemed to have on the people around him.

"Well, the house they want is near the area that you and Glen have been having trouble keeping sturdy. The husband, I mean the new Sheriff intends to work with you and Glen. He wants to get his hands dirty. He wants to give his wife peace of mind that he saw to their safety."

"They have any children?" Lori inquired.

"Two. A girl and a boy. Their son is close to Carl's age." Carol responded while she waited for Rick to slide on his boots. "I think the boy's name is Adrian or Andre. I didn't catch the girls name."

"Rick, maybe you can take Carl with you to meet-"

"Oh, they aren't with the new Sheriff. It's just the Sheriff. The family is at the Hilltop. The sooner that Wall is sturdy, they will be moving here to Alexandria. I plan to take the wife out on a tour of the walking dead. Sasha drove back from the Hilltop. She's met the Sheriff's wife. Said she is pretty smart. No nonsense and wants to get her hands dirty as well. Took her with her to scout out homes for supplies and there was an incident that left her speechless how the Sheriff's wife found a weapon to use when they were cornered by a small herd of them. The sheriff's wife took them all down with some fast work with a Katana. She carries it with her now. It is her weapon of choice.

Rick scoffed.

Carol responded to the sound and was in agreement. "Thought the same thing but Sasha says we need to see her in action."

"From the Underground Safe Zone to Samurai Warrior. Yeah." Rick stood up and was out the door to meet the new Sheriff.


	111. Hi My Name Is Rick Grimes

**Rick: Hi My Name Is Rick Grimes**

* * *

The new Sheriff wasn't what Rick had expected. Rick had found the man to be very charismatic. Michael Theodore Benton'e Longwood. Mike had taken on his wife's name, and Rick wasn't sure which would have been the last name when it all sounded very pretentious. He had the air of Obama, Rick thought to himself. He had the gift of gab.

What worked in the old world may not have any place in the here and now unless there was a way to put down a walker with words. A lot of words. So many words until Rick finally realized that he and Shane were hand selected along with a few others to go to the NWA academy and to report by morning to the Hilltop.

She didn't recognize him and at first, he was surprised that she walked right past him in the hall of the small community college that was fenced in a mile within the Hilltop community where Gregory the asshole ruled behind a desk and not much else. The hilltop expansion consisted of miles of grueling work to keep the walkers out, and the barricades were monitored continuously from look-out points with 365-degree vantage point. Survivors from all over finding their usefulness.

When he made his introduction on the first day of class, he was surprised that she didn't pause or wonder if they had ever met. Rick realized he must've looked very different without the facial hair he wore until the entry into Alexandria. He had been clean shaven ever since. Three weeks into the training Rick had it settled in his mind that he was going to say something. It had become his obsession and it was going to drive him crazy if he didn't make his presence known to Michonne.

Rick had made love to this woman that stood before the class a hundred times. Those hundred times that he stripped her of her clothes were merely in his mind, dreams, fantasies desires unfulfilled. He had Michonne in every position and he had even coated her body with his sweat as he imagined all the work he would have to put in to make her orgasm and scream his name. He wasn't going to ever stop until she screamed his name.

He began to picture her bent over the desk waiting for him to give it to her just the way she wanted. His face buried deep and her ass resting on his forehead. He would willingly lap up every drop and do it all again until he drained her dry or she begged him to get on top of her.

Rick imagined sitting in the instructor chair and commanding Michonne to sit real slow so he could watch how her body would take him in. All moist and tight.

"You keep looking at her," Shane commented. His voice was lower for Rick to hear.

"What?" Rick swallowed. He was aroused beyond explanation and the seat became uncomfortable as he tried to reposition and not be obvious in his distress. The academy uniform did little to hide a bulge and his was pointed downward against his left thigh. He hated wearing boxers.

"You are finally looking like a man that ain't blind to the fineness that we are graced to have in our midst." Shane continued with his narrative to Rick's body language whenever they had this particular class.

"Fineness?" Rick questioned. He wanted to focus on the word and not his lust driven desire to have this particular instructor all to himself. He wondered if his eyes were really heart shaped. Was he being obvious?

"You've been lowkey gawking but not talking. What's going on?" Shane wanted details. The flush to his friends face indicated there was a story.

Rick didn't reveal anything. He kept his thoughts to himself and allowed his childhood friend and murder accomplice to fill in the blanks with any sordid details he chose. It was the only thing that kept Shane alert, and that was the women who taught or attended were in pretty good shape.

People from various backgrounds in different classrooms were presenting material in a manner that was detached but with authority granted to them. Each presentation was dry, dull, almost torturous until his last class which was, Michonne's. She presented her material the same way but for the most part she was open to thoughts more than she would let on.

Michonne looked almost exactly the same other than her dreads were longer, and she was dressed in an all-white instructor uniform. The way her skin seemed to have a glow, and the surprise in seeing her hair down instead of up was always unexpected. She was in terrific shape. He was guilty in watching her practice and teach hand to hand combat dressed in her black uniform. He was mesmerized.

"So you have been sitting in my class all this time? And your name is Rick Grimes?"

"Guilty."

"Oh my God."

"I was waiting for the right time. I was trying to get up enough nerves. A part of me wanted to keep that time in the woods buried. I wanted to respect that for you and if I overstepped, I am sorry. I just wanted to connect with you, and it wasn't going to be easy with nothing and pretending there wasn't a history. A short history we shared."

"You haven't overstepped, Grizzly-I mean, Rick. I am going to have to practice calling you by your name. You definitely don't look like grizzly anymore. I have never seen your face like that before. The way it is now."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Good. Both ways were good for me. This way now is different. Different in a good way. Wow."

"Almost 4 years, Michonne."

"Andre said you were out here. That you were here at the Hilltop. He saw you, and he ran to show Abigail who insisted that you weren't Grizzly. Andre says you do something different with your hands. He said that was how he knew or thought it was you."

"Yeah? When did he tell you he saw me?"

"A week ago. Abigail said you look too good and clean to be Grizzly Adams. She didn't remember anything about what you would do with your hands."

Rick laughed, "Is that so? I have to ask Andre what is it exactly that I do so I can stop since it is a noticeable tick that I'm not aware of."

Michonne found herself marveling at the face standing before her in her classroom.

"I would like to see them."

"They would love to see you too." Michonne couldn't help the smile that plastered her face.

"You keep smiling like that Ms. Michonne people are going to think that I am the teacher's pet."

"Get out of here." Michonne shook her head. The smile never leaving her lips.

"I am, on one condition?"

"What's that?"

"Come away with me?"

Rick couldn't believe he was asking and the amount of confidence he felt when he suggested it to her, Rick wouldn't recognize himself if he were on the outside looking in at the scene that was happening.

"Come away with you?"

"Just a leisurely stroll is all. I can show you around the Kingdom." Rick offered. He wanted desperately to spend some time to talk and see if there was still the connection because for him it was still there and eagerly seeking to re-engage if possible.

"Is that where you live?" Michonne asked.

"No."

"I've been to the Kingdom." Michonne sat back in her chair.

"Have you?"

"I have."

"Who has taken you?"

"I have gone with Sasha."

"How many of my people do you know?" Rick asked curiously.

"I know Sasha. I've met Daryl. Shane. Eugene. I had to dismiss him from my class. He would be better suited for something else but not here. Not in my classroom."

Rick laughed. He saw the animated Michonne that he knew no one else was privy to see. This was for his eyes only, and he relished in her display, her voice and being close enough to almost feel like he could touch her. He wanted to, but he didn't.

"You've met Eugene. He does make an impression."

"Interesting that you call them your people. I would like to no more about what happened to you and how you met up with them. I would like to know how you found your family. Your wife. I thought you-." Michonne didn't want to say out loud what she was led to believe because he believed it too.

"I did too. Boy did I. She was in a coma. I went to our house looking for Carl and found her there instead. She was ready to kill me thinking I was one of them or a vagabond coming into the house the way that I did. She was pregnant. Six months at the time."

"Is it-"

"Not mine. My wife had a baby girl on the outside of the gates, and it was hell trying to find safety, food, and keep everyone level-headed. Our group grew larger the miles we traveled. If it weren't for Shane and a few others that we had and lost on the way, I would say we were all going to be eventually Walker food. There were and are people out there more dangerous than a herd. The concept of taking a life hasn't been lost on me or us because we keep counting. If you stop counting or don't count than you've killed too many or taking a life doesn't matter, and that is just as dangerous. Too dangerous to have in a community of survivors."

"Interesting perspective." Michonne considered his point of view.

"How many walkers have you put down?" Rick reversed roles with Michonne. He was in charge.

"Twenty-two," Michonne answered without having to think about it.

"With a sword?"

"Yes."

"Do you know how to shoot?"

"I do." Michonne knew that Rick was aware of that answer because she had shot her ex in the woods three years ago in front of him and her children.

"Do you have time to go with me to the Kingdom?" Rick asked again.

"I have to have official business to move about. Why would I go to the Kingdom?"

"Well, the food tastes better there."

"Are you asking me on a date?"

"No. I am not breaking any laws that you have listed and have expounded upon ad nauseam."

"The Kingdom is 40 minutes away."

"The route I take it is 20 minutes."

"What?!" Michonne couldn't believe her ears.

"Twenty minutes tops. If I am wrong to arrest me. Have me arrested."

"I can not put you with your own four-wheeler. You haven't graduated yet. You aren't official-"

"Who said we need a four-wheeler?"

"I need a reason for leaving the Hilltop, and if what you suggested is true it needs to be verified and confirmed. I can update my report and send it to Deanna in Alexandria that it has been officially traveled. I will need to take some notes as we travel."

Michonne tried to rationalize the outing and based on the timing it would have her back at home for her children. She could buy extra to serve her family whatever she found to purchased from the cafeteria there.

"We have an official reason."

"We will need a third wheel." Michonne tapped her finger on her desk.

"Hey, Rick, what are you still doing in here? If ass kissing is going to get you at the top of the class, I think you are with the wrong instructor."

Shane stood in the open doorway of the classroom. He wasn't aware that his appearance was going to make him a party to the deception of another kind.

* * *

A/N: One more Chapter of the Long Long Road. Then back to the Regular Scheduled Program of Scream Into My Pillow.


	112. The Fear Of Exile

**Michonne: Exile**

* * *

Michonne didn't expect the spark to still be there. He had crossed her mind on occasion. She wondered if he were safe and if he was even still hidden away in the cabin.

She remembered the way that he kissed her and the way that his mouth tasted of the bitter juices from the grass he nibbled on while he sat and watched her intently on most days and other days she sat back and watched him.

She recalled his arms and the leanness of what she imagined his body was like underneath that brown T-shirt and worn jeans that seemed to be his everyday staple until she made a comment about it and he began to find a reason to change things up a bit.

That was then. This was now.

The patches of hair on his body and the length of his hair on his head. Michonne couldn't help but caress him in spots that she found pleased him. He liked his hair pulled. She noticed that it made him more arduous with his assault on her lips as he kissed her deeply and most times he would moan in her mouth. When he whimpered all her senses went into overload. She became ravenous and greedy.

Rick was hungry for her. Michonne knew that she could easily have Rick on his knees begging her to show him her Tits and that alone was intoxicating. It caused her to feel his delirium.

Michonne felt high, and it clouded her judgment when she closed the door and stripped his pants down to his ankles. She fell to her knees and took him into her mouth. He had nothing to grip on or balance himself. The way that his body shook and trembled and the deep moan that he released as she picked up the pace with sucking him and taking him down her throat. Her gagging caused him to hiss, and her moans that vibrated near his shaft had him calling on God and asking for infinite mercy because he was going to fucking cum and he was seeking permission that Michonne wouldn't give until she felt it was too much for him to bear.

"Cum for me baby," Michonne spoke her command as her hand pumped until her mouth took over and began speeding up her technique. Hand and mouth. Hand and mouth. Rick found himself back to the brink with then a matter of a minute.

"I...Oh...Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Rick responded with no degree of control. His hips bucked forward and back twice. He shot what felt like a massive load as soon as his tip hit the back of her throat. His hands clutched fists full of her dreads.

It was glorious to feel him and to taste him and to cause the reaction that she got from him. The look on his face when Michonne stood caused her to giggle briefly. She was surprised that he grabbed her hair again and crushed his mouth on top of hers. He had her back up against the wall and his hands down her uniform pants. He was fingering her while he stared into her eyes. She was rocking against two fingers that found it's way to her sweet spot and by the time the third one tried to find room she had already discovered her nirvana with the unexpected intimacy they shared against the closed door of her empty classroom.

They were getting way to comfortable with each other, and that realization came a moment too late when Michonne had Rick up under her Teacher's desk eating her pussy. She was ready to hyperventilate when the instructor from next door thought it would be a good time to ask if she was going to lock up for the night. This was her turn to lock up. Whenever it was her turn to lock up, she did just that without fail. It was odd to have the unexpected reminder.

His hands stayed gripped up under her ass between her legs for leverage to keep her lifted and it help with rotating her hips. His tongue game was on point. Michonne could feel that Rick kept his lips locked and pressed on her clit until the instructor was gone before he proceeded to give her the right amount of pressure that caused her to moan in agony because it was the most delicious sensation to course through her body. She bit her lower lip to prevent herself from going several octaves higher just in case the instructor was hiding around the corner. The thought of having an ease dropper added to her intense need for him to thumb and tongue her again.

She tugged his hair and slouched down further to give him adequate access until she was sure she had not one orgasm left. She squirted the last drop and hearing him whine for more, his begging and pleading had Michonne wanting him on top of her.

Laid bare by him on top of a mattress Michonne discovered that he caused her body to experience complete exhaustion. She could tell he hadn't had sex in a long time because he was like the Energizer Bunny.

They were going through condoms. They were doing it raw. Raw was the best. It caused him to lose his mind when they did, and it caused her to give up any glimpse of sanity to their situation. They were both fucked. Literally and figuratively.

He knew of a place where they could be alone. It was outside of any community, and it was one that he had found random supplies a few years ago. It had been pillaged, but the beauty of the home was still something to admire. The house had strong bones, and in the old world, this would have been chosen by the upper middle class.

The dead didn't walk the halls nor were they hiding in the closets. This home was free of any foreseeable threats. The discovery by anyone they knew would be equivalent to finding a needle in a haystack. The odds indicated that they were safe.

"How long do I have with you?" Rick asked. His body pressed against the back of Michonne who was trying not to doze off but she was dozing.

"I don't know. I don't want to look. I just want to sleep."

"You can't go to sleep, Chonne."

"Yes, I can." Michonne moaned her displeasure.

The sleep that she felt was the kind that would be considered the real good drool type of rest. The type of sleep that would take hours to realize that you have to fall asleep and you are about to be in so much trouble because you had prior engagements and people that needed you to be at a specific place at a particular time. The only place Michonne wanted to be was in this bed, with him.

"We can't go to sleep, Michonne. That was the deal." Rick reminded her.

"Just ten minutes."

"If you let me nuzzle in your hair and neck."

"You are so strange."

"Call me whatever but you can't call me horny."

"Horny."

"I was just here to oblige you."

"Horny, liar."

"I am telling the truth, Michonne. You can call me anything but don't call me a horny liar."

"You're a strange horny liar."

"What does that make you?"

"A weird horny liar."

"Good."

"Can I go to sleep now?"

"After a kiss."

"Rick. I am so sleepy."

"Just a quick kiss, Michonne."

"A quick kiss is never a quick kiss, Rick."

"Well this is going to the first time, I will make it quick."

Michonne turned her body to face him.

"I don't want to stop what we are doing."

"This has to be the last time, Rick. We can't keep doing this."

"I'm trying to show you something, Michonne. I am trying to show you that we can be free. We don't have to live within a community and abide by bullshit laws made to control the people. We aren't sheep. We don't have to be responsible for them either. Just us. Ourselves." Rick made his argument.

Michonne countered, "The implementation of the law brings protection by the U. S. Government. That in itself is big. Needed." Michonne tried to convince Rick of the overall picture or goal. "Anything else is just utter chaos. Checks and Balances."

"We can police and govern ourselves. We don't need big brother trying to find a way to latch on giving us the mindset that we can't do this on our own. We can. We just have to believe that we can do it."

"Where is this change of mind coming from. Where is this new way of thinking coming from? It was just a few days ago you were really pissed off that I showed up at your house."

"I haven't or hadn't given this the right amount of thought, Michonne." Rick was referring to his relationship with her.

"It took being discovered by someone for you to think, Rick?" Michonne questioned.

"I am not going to kill a kid. I am not going to call Sam a liar and that what he saw wasn't really what he saw. I am not going to start lying about this. I am not going to do it. I know you haven't asked me to do it, but I am putting it out there, Michonne. The risk of exile is real, and I know Carl will want to follow me, and I can't have that happen. He is safe in Alexandria. I instead would want them to shoot me than to have my son following my trail to be with me. I feel that deeply about things, but I also know that if I am told to leave there will be people that would follow. I don't want that either. I can't promise anything safer than what they have and-"

"I don't want to talk about exile. I am going to fight very hard for that not to happen. I won't go down without a fight that we deserve a chance on the inside, Rick. If by chance we don't win this, I will go where ever you go. I will bring my babies with me." Michonne knew in her heart that she was not going to leave her kids in Alexandria. They would go with her, and they would follow Rick. She would be exiled too.

"Michonne, don't cry. I didn't mean to make you cry." Rick kissed the fallen tears that caused his eyes to weld with his own. "I will create a safe place for us, Michonne. If it comes down to it. I will. I can. Right now, nothing has been said. It may be in our best interest to tell it. Don't wait for it to come to light."

"What are we going to tell?" Michonne wanted to know what angle they were going to approach the situation. She could maneuver around the legal aspect.

"That we have fallen helplessly in love with each other and it happened way before the communities and these laws that we are being forced to abide by."

Michonne was quiet. His words had struck her mute. There was no legal aspect to maneuver. They have committed adultery. Infidelity was a crime punishable by exile. Love had nothing to do with it. It wasn't factored.

Rick made sure he had Michonne's full attention before he continued, "I am in love with you Michonne Benton. Madly, crazy insanely in love with you. I am not with you for the sex, and I am not going to Deanna minimizing what you and I share. It's more than the sex. It is more than that for me. I don't plan to stay away from you. I don't intend to stop this thing we have going on with each other. What I want is a way to make it official."

"My husband isn't going to take this well. He is..." Michonne had no idea where she was going with her thought. Her apprehension grew exponentially. The gravity was overwhelming as the reality began to sink weigh her down.

This was beyond what Michonne could imagine. The betrayal. She wasn't sure how Mike was going to respond to the news. She would prefer to run off into the night with Rick than to inform her husband that she had fallen in love with someone else and the guy just so happens to be the man that works for him.

They should have remained underground.

* * *

A/N: Intermission is over for now. Soon we will be back to the regular scheduled program. Scream Into My Pillow Is Next.


	113. Intermission Over

**Back To Regular Scheduled Reading**

* * *

 **Are the intermission stories permanently over?**

Of course not.

 **So this is what falling into the foxhole is about?**

Yes.

 **Can we get a summary?**

A Summary? How about Scream stops at Chapter 73 and picks back up once you finish reading the public announcement?

Summary? What? Let me think. Okay. Rick is in the hospital parking lot ready to get out of his car. He just left Michonne's place after having sex that they are both aware they are having and had because they are off the drug like Ambien.

This is still **NOT** Linear. Puzzle pieces, creating eventually a bigger picture. Weaving in and out of the past, present and future. If this induces headaches and confusion it would help if you take each piece until it connects where you want it.

 **You have too many stories running, how do you keep it all straight?**

Barely.

 **I really like** All I Need. **When do you plan to update that one again?**

After I finish posting a few boom boom boom to this. Expect to be spammed with updates in the next hour or less. I have updates for both stories.

 **You have other stories, what about updates to those?**

Working on it. Promise. I am working on each one with every spare minute given me now that my RL job has given me a project I didn't volunteer for which means longer hours.

 **What happened to the** Til The Casket Drops **?**

I wanted that bad baby updated for Halloween and failed due to RL job that had given me a friggin project that I didn't volunteer for. I should be grateful I have a RL but I love this Richonne almost more. Weep. I need help. lol.

 **Really what is Scream about?**

Well? I guess many things that I, The Fox is aware is random plot driven. It shapes as I type. No forethought. Maybe I should give things more forethought. Probably where linear lives.

 **The Foxhole?**

This is what it feels like going down in one of Foxissofoxy rabbit-holes (Foxholes) Yes. Yes Indeed!

 **Where is** Scream Into My Pillow **?**

Yes! Sounds like you want to proceed now you have officially fallen a few times into the Foxhole. You click to read my stories, sounds like you know where you are and it is finally not as dark when I was unfamiliar to you. Standing completely in the foxhole if you made it this far. Yes! Thank you! I appreciate all that dare to re-imagine!

 **What are you doing Foxissofoxy?**

Counting how many people that will continue to fall into the Rabbit hole with me now that they are falling...or maybe it's really just me...

* * *

 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me,_  
 _I went down in the hole_  
 _to see what I could see, but_  
 _when I got down in the hole wasn't nobody but me,_  
 _I'm down in the hole I'm down in the hole_

 _I was_  
 _down in the hole_  
 _down in the hole_

 **The Soul Of John Black**


	114. Handyman

"Most killers have pretty average lifestyles. Steady jobs too. Sometimes they're even living the family life-white picket fence and a four-door sedan. That's what makes them so scary. They act human and they slot into society and since a young age they've known how to hide the crazy; they put it up on a shelf and only bring it out on special occasions."  
 **― Paul Cleave, The Killing Hour**

* * *

The hardest thing was to get out of the car. I visualized myself standing in front of Carl's hospital room bracing myself to see Lori at his bedside, I felt guilty almost instantly. Guilt for not holding a vigil as if it was a test of whom loved Carl the most, Lori claiming victory by the momentary glare. I still maintain that I would again switch places with my son.

When I had opened the car door, I wasn't eager to get drenched by the rain that was coming down with signs of eventually slowing to a drizzle since I failed to have an umbrella with me. I was ready.

The wet pavement. Sounds the sounds my ears instantly became attuned to, my eyes quickly scoped the area. A male running. Another man in hot pursuit. Adrenaline went into overdrive. It was Shane that was after someone. It was Shane without backup.

The sound from my friend was almost audible from the distance, "Shit...Shit...Shit." Shane was closing in gradually and if the car that was pulling forward hadn't stopped when it did, Shane would have lost ground.

That caused an instant trigger, changing my state of mind. I opened up my car door and lifted the driver seat where a hidden compartment was and pulled out my loaded colt like I would have opened the glove box for my registration or forgotten bottle of prescription. Out of sight, out of mind.

I became the Handyman.


	115. Dont Scream Without Him

"Just as it is impossible to explain childbirth to a woman who has never given birth, it is impossible to explain child loss to a person who has never lost a child."  
 **― Lynda Cheldelin Fell**

 _Michonne: I miss you already._

 **Rick** :

There wasn't a response to my text to Rick. When it did finally appear the smile grew on my face. I stood in the mirror naked reading the reply.

 **Rick** : I miss you.

 **Michonne** : Yeah?

 **Rick:** No more screaming into pillows without me.

 **Michonne** : Hurry back to me, if you can.

 **Rick** : I will.

I held the phone to my chest as if I could imprint his words there forever, I would. I did.

Sex. It was incredible. The lovemaking was intense as were my emotions the very next day. I was hormonal more than ever, and I spent most of the day in tears. Rick was everywhere in my place. I could smell him. His presence. His essence that he left behind on the towels and the clothes he threw in the hamper. The slight misting of cologne that I suggested he wear hung lightly in the air of his closet. A closet that began to grow the more time he spent with me. A collection of newer things and the old clothing that he would step out of to replace with more designer casual wear was well organized. I began to fold his things that I had taken out of the dryer, stacking neatly on his closet shelves before going to the dresser.

I found another list that Rick had for me when I had opened his sock drawer. I had unfolded the small sheet of paper that had his distinctive handwriting that I realized was his as if I could recognize his writing from any other. This list was for me. Things to not do.

1\. Don't call me Baby  
2\. Don't say you need me.  
3\. Don't tell me you Love me.  
4\. Don't lie to me.  
5\. Don't Scream into my Pillow.

Don't scream into his pillow? Michonne found it very curious that he would have it on the list. A rule she was sure she broke with his permission.


	116. Detox

"...when your child dies, you feel everything you'd expect to feel, feelings so well-documented by so many others that I won't even bother to list them here, except to say that everything that's written about mourning is all the same, and it's all the same for a reason - because there is no read deviation from the text. Sometimes you feel more of one thing and less of another, and sometimes you feel them out of order, and sometimes you feel them for a longer time or a shorter time. But the sensations are always the same.

But here's what no one says - when it's your child, a part of you, a very tiny but nonetheless unignorable part of you, also feels relief. Because finally, the moment you have been expecting, been dreading, been preparing yourself for since the day you became a parent, has come.

Ah, you tell yourself, it's arrived. Here it is.

And after that, you have nothing to fear again."  
 **― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life**

* * *

Paranoia. Raving mad. Madness. Hot. Sweats. Chills. Shiver. Night Terrors. Itch. Scratch. Delirium. Sweats. Dry Heaves. Breaking into pieces. Time gaps. Deep sleep. Dreamless. Pain. Return of acute grief. Repeat.

Michonne had left him without a pillow that night. The consolation was a bed of pillows on the floor that held echoes of her trapped wails.

Rick needed a pillow. The only way he could sleep was with his head resting on a pillow, but she was ready to take that too. She screamed in every Pillow until his was the last one. Michonne demanded she needed to scream into what his head was resting on in order to let out what was building like waves crashing to shore to drown her, to drown them both.

"Michonne, I can't sleep without this. Get the other pillows. The ones on the floor, where you tossed them." Rick suggested to the woman that was pacing back and forth on his side of the bed that he was sharing with her at her home on the river.

"I've already screamed into those. I have one more left."

"You don't need to scream into my pillow. You need to talk about it." Rick felt his anxiety ebbing the more he focused on the woman that was emotional and becoming more of a wreck because of the past that haunted her now that the drugs were no longer masking the glass window she turned her back from to avoid the bombardment that would take over her mind. The reminder.

She was falling apart. She needed to scream, but she stopped and spoke after taking a deep breath and finding blue eyes wanting to accept her pieces and collect them one by one. Soon she wouldn't be a puzzle to Rick. There she stood, a beautiful mystery.

"I miss him. I miss my baby. I miss him so much that it hurts and it is raw." Michonne's eyes welled up with more tears that quickly fell. "I was a good mother. I made sure of everything, but I didn't know that I had to care about the bears and lions because that didn't apply to us. I can't help but blame myself."

"Bears and Lions?" Rick questioned the same story told to him from before.

Michonne began to sob uncontrollably.

"You can't worry about everything, Michonne. To worry about bears and Lions would mean to be paranoid about everything when you aren't at the zoo, in the woods or the wilds of whatever jungle."

Rick sat up, positioning himself on the bed where his feet rested on the floor. He reached for Michonne drawing her close to him. She allowed him to take her exposed waist in his rough hands. The act increased her feelings of loss inside of her heart and soul, boiling over. Rough hands were like the eye of the stove, causing the roiling to grow stronger.

"I should have stuck with the routine." Michonne wept, trying to wipe her endless tears of regret away.

Rick wasn't sure what was going on or what had actually happened to what he figured was a child that she lost at some point in time, but he was there for her to work through it even though he had his own demons that flitted in out of his mind of paranoia.

"What do you want me to do, Michonne?"

"Let me scream into your pillow."

Rick thought for a moment as he stared into her red swollen watershed eyes, he gave her his pillow. He watched her take it. She covered her face to muffle her screams.

The amount of pillows strewn across the floor represented her screams on the other side of the bed. Rick watched Michonne walk over to that side. There her body convulsed from the degree of relentless sobbing. She eventually fell to her knees that were cushioned by the graveyard she created while they suffered through detoxing together.

Rick found himself just as pained as she and the depth of her despair he sympathized to the point he felt the ache almost as intensely. He had Carl, and wasn't sure for how much longer.

Walking to the opposite side of the bed he found Michonne balled up in a fetal position with the pillow hugged close to her body as she continued to weep on a bed of pillows that had every horror scream of how the news affected her when she learned that her child had died. He climbed on top of the small mound of every imaginable pillow she had found through out the house and cuddled her close to his chest. There they slept.


	117. Bob Is Dead

"Naturally, one does not normally discuss plans to commit murder with the intended victim."  
 **― Robert J. Sawyer, Flashforward**

* * *

Bob dug his own grave. He even allowed his wrist to be bound without a struggle when he had finished. Mabel didn't wait for him to get on his knees nor did she ask if he had any final words. She didn't even have any words. Pow. And in slow motion blood droplets like rain hit and landed as the skull was pierced by the single bullet.

Momentary silence.

"What the fuck, Mabel? Couldn't you at least wait until I was at least 3 feet away before you blew his brains out."

NIV was pissed. He had warm blood splattered on his face and clothes. Blood that belongs to talk a lot Bob who will speak no more.

Tyrese stood above with Midge and Mabel who both turned away and walked to the car leaving Tyrese and NIV to cover the body.

"You need to do a better job of vetting the men that work for you."

"To Vet them is to fuck each and every one of them. At my age, I will pass. I have settled down more than I ever thought possible these days." Mabel admitted.

"What are you saying? Your pussy got old?" Midge asked curiously. The woman that Midge stood next to was still attractive for her age, and she did have a strong resemblance to Angela Bassett from the movies.

"I am saying the flower I have and receive belongs to one man." Mabel glanced down at the woman that barely stood taller than her lower rib cage.

"Herschel. You sure know how to pick them. Married and old news." Midge shook her head.

"He keeps the news from spreading. He is what we need. We need more of the law turning a blind eye."

"Mabel we need more than the law. We need Michonne. We need her back so we can have Andrea, Sasha, and Rosita doing other things. We have been falling behind on moving our business ventures at a steady pace forward if we got our top on guard. I'm of the mind that if anyone wants, Michonne let them have her, and we move on."

"Sounds like you've made a decision Midge?" Mabel was surprised.

"Rosa made a decision. She has told them to fallback. Too many delays and it is costing Rosa her reputation in Columbia and elsewhere."

"Rosita's mother, making decisions that have reached your ear?"

"Yes. Directly from, Rosa."

The two women walked to Midge's awaiting car, engine still running, the armed driver who was over 7ft tall opening the door for the two women to slide inside. Mabel climbed in first.

"There's a shipment. Weapons. They are being transported from Alexandria, and this will be the second time trying to get it safely delivered without being ambushed by the likes of no other than the well-organized group calling themselves in some circles the Saviors."

"The group where everyone is Negan?" Mabel asked.

"Yes. Reports have surfaced that Negan had infiltrated the hive in some capacity and with Michonne's memory purported wiped away, it was recommended to have a hit placed on anyone that had any affiliation with the gang, since it has grown again in number."

"I thought what Mamba-Michonne had done had taken care of that when she went rogue after what happened to Andre?" Mabel was shocked by this news and countered it for it's accuracy against events told to her.

"Killing people in their sleep didn't resolve who the actual leader was among the Saviors. Who's to say that they had any part of what happened? Everyone knows in our business that you take down the leader and then the ones that are in second and third in line. It is usually the best way to go about things. Remove the tumor usually takes care of the cancer. What Mamba did was reckless. Enlisting no help to ensure it was all done right was a slap in the face to us all. If the whole picture wasn't known that her child died in a hot car because they had taken your son, Mike, I would think Michonne was trying to create her own little playing den. Swaying Rosita to choose between her mother was crazy move if you were to ask me."

"What does all of this have to do with me, Midge?"

Mabel wasn't happy to have a very private scab scratched. The loss of her son and grandson was something that officially removed a vulnerability to her and her organization. It was a high price to pay. A price she paid to remain in her line of work with no additional liabilities. If she had to do all over again...

"We need your muscle, and we also need you to find Noah. If he created the pill to take the memory away then we need him to create a reversal, or _cause_ a reversal, Rosa doesn't give a damn how it is done, but the hive doesn't coordinate well without Queen Bee knowing her workers are working as optimally as possible."

"A snake. You want to awaken, Mamba from her long slumber?" Mabel was convinced that the dwarf woman was clueless to the hellish nightmare that they would have on their hands with Michonne in full effect.

"With Noah back we will have access to know everything about, Mamba. I was told that he kept very well documented notes. Denise was very forthcoming. We still have her in our employ."

"You are adding more to my plate than I care to have at one time. My focus is trying to find diamonds that I never fucking had in the first place."

"I hope what you were able to get out of Bob will resolve that mystery." Midge tapped her window with the back of her hand that had a ring with a large sapphire on her finger. The sound of the stone against the glass alerted the driver that was standing outside on the opposite side of where Midge sat. He opened Mabel's door for her to exit. "We will be in touch."

"We will." Mabel hoped that the sound in her tone didn't give away that when and if they met again, she was going to kill her first midget.


	118. The Evolving List

"Do you know what passion is?"  
I blink, confused.  
"Most people think it only means desire. Arousal. Wild abandon. But that's not all. The word derives from the Latin. It means suffering. Submission. Pain and pleasure, Nikki. Passion."  
 **― J. Kenner, Release Me**

* * *

I found the list that Rick had for me based on a previous clip that I watched. It was in his underwear drawer. I read it.

1\. Don't call me Baby  
2\. Don't say you need me.  
3\. Don't tell me you Love me.  
4\. Don't lie to me.  
5\. Don't Scream into my Pillow.

His list was corresponding to things on the video clips on my phone. I recalled where the don't tell me you love came from instantly as the video played.

"You want to add it to your list. Go ahead." I told him.

"I don't need you telling me something if you don't mean it, Michonne." Rick said. He appeared shy, bashful. His voice was lower. Unsure.

"Okay." I agreed.

"Ow. Ouch. What are you doing?" Rick questioned what was happening between us.

"Love bites."

"I am going to bite you right back." Rick said determined.

"Okay."

He nipped not as hard as he could but the pleasure was amazing based on the sound I let escape, reverberating in my lower region as I watched the video.

I was struck by a shirtless Rick. I began to refocus.

The way he stared at my camera phone filming the moment, I smiled with no recall of this ever happening. According to the angle I was holding my phone in front of my face, close to his. He was staring at me right in the eyes it seemed. His blues were changing from light like the bright sky to dark with desire in a matter of seconds. He bit me and the camera fell and it was laughter turning again into moans sensual moans. The camera remained out of focus.

"That wasn't supposed to hurt, Michonne."

Still stunned by the pain from the bite I gave him before Rick bit me right back.

"Sometimes it feels so good to find ways to make you belong to me." I moaned. The camera came to focus on his face once it found the bright red bite mark on his shoulder.

"You bit down hard, Michonne." Rick voiced his grievance again.

"Because that is how much, _Baby_." The phone was dropped again and was filming the ceiling of my place in upscale Atlanta.

The things that Michonne could not see was that she had licked the spot before she took Rick's shocked face into her hands and kissed him gently on the lips. She spoke again, seductively licking her bottom lip that caused his breathing to become ragged. He wanted to kiss her but she moved away each time he leaned forward to take her mouth to join his.

"That's how much."' Michonne reaffirmed.

"How much what?"

"For you to belong to me."

"You want it rough?" Rick questioned. Hesitant.

"Yes."

"What kind of rough are we talking about?" Rick was curious to where things were going and if he was even comfortable with inflicting pain or having it done to him.

"The kind that I like?" Michonne was puzzled by Rick's hesitation.

"What's that?"

"Smack my ass and I will tell you all bout it." The video ended at that moment in the conversation.


	119. Diamonds

"She smiled and said with an ecstatic air: "It shines like a little diamond,"  
"What does?"  
"This moment. It is round, it hangs in empty space like a little diamond; I am eternal."  
 **― Jean-Paul Sartre, The Age of Reason**

* * *

What I remembered began to take on a new life. Video clips started to bring about the bigger picture. A creation that even I could not imagine even with the scars that were left behind. I discovered why I was eager to see Michonne and to be with her. We may have been spaced out of our fucking minds but the lucid moments helped to connect the dots to the forgotten moments that left a residual of desire, longing, and feeling connected somehow. More intimate than we could have ever imagined.

I was watching another clip once Daryl finally left after making the offer to repair my car and I was able to go home to an empty house. I showered and climbed into what felt more and more like an unfamiliar bed.

"What are you doing ?"

"I want to have a video of this event."

"I have been in your car before," Michonne stated as if it wasn't a big deal.

"You have never driven my car before."

"Give me the keys. I am eager to get behind the wheel of this prehistoric dinosaur you have here, sir." Michonne demanded. He was driving a Tercel.

She was dressed in her blue pajamas. I must have been giving her some type of look because she was staring back and there was the momentary pause, and the recording stopped.

I clicked on a different video that was over an hour long and became engrossed by how the camera was out of focus. Sounds of heated sex. Moans. Heavy breathing. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Michonne beneath me or on top. I tried to imagine how she felt with her naked flesh against my own.

She moaned my name, and I was a goner. By the time I realized I had dozed off I was an hour in and there was talk about where to hide the diamonds.

"Rick, what are you doing?"

"I am creating a diamond pussy."

"You better not put anything up inside of me." Michonne warned.

"Do you see how hard I am, Michonne? I have never been this hard. Diamond Dick meet Diamond Pussy."

The camera was focused on Michonne's lower half and my own. I could see I was between her legs on my knees with an incredible hard-on. I had a large diamond on the tip. She was laughing and protesting. We had diamonds. Diamonds were everywhere.


	120. History Lesson Given by Carl

( **This is a continuation to my Intermission 2 Story. The One That Got Away. It starts on Page 75 to 100. I hope to have this completed soon. I will post a photo of how I envision Senior Grimes on Tumblr)**

* * *

"We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead; we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us-who, 've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed."  
 **― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin**

* * *

 **Carl's History Lesson:**

I am one of the few kids I know who still have the same parents. I don't have any siblings. I don't have any step or half. I have the same Mom and Dad. I am an oddity.

Mom has been weird lately. I don't think Dad notices, but she feels for some reason that she can dress like a young person. She and her best friend Jessie shop in the-the Teen section and-and I got ragged pretty bad about it from Enid who works at forever 21. Ron too.

Both our mothers are well known for always being very visible from kindergarten through high school. My Mom and Ron's Mom have been a stay at home since we could remember.

I hate having friends over because my mom seems to flirt with my guy friends. It's really weird.

My grandfather passed away, and it was sudden. I had just talked to him on the phone. He wanted me to pass along a phone number to my Dad. I stuck it on the refrigerator along with a thousand other notes. It read: **Call Michonne 866-777-5544.** Notes cluttered our refrigerator to the point that you would never have known that our fridge was white and it matches everything that is in the kitchen. White.

I wasn't sad when Senior, my Grandfather passed. My Dad didn't look like he was going to shed a tear and my Mom had her pretend sad face. I was like my Dad; we weren't going to shed a tear. I was surprised to hear that I got more than my Dad and Aunt Tara. 500k once I turned 18! I got my envelope and found out that it was more of a stipulation attached or requirements I had to meet to have the money released to me. Yearly increments. I had to complete college. I had to maintain a b average. I wasn't to get married until I was 30. If I waited until thirty-five, there was a much more significant addition based on a percentage of interest compounded by relative factoring. What?

I wasn't necessarily close to my grandfather. He was never around much, and when he was, we all knew we fell short of some standard he had in his mind. I knew one thing, he didn't like my Mom. He would say things to my Dad and me about Mom. He had even said a few words directly to Mom, and she would get all pissed off that he would hold her feet to the fire.

You see, my Mom likes jewelry, and she would borrow things from my Grandma Ella and never return it. Sometimes things would just come up missing, and there would be words when Dad would bring the missing items back to the rightful owners.

My Mom has gone to counseling for it. She and Jessie have both been arrested when I was younger. They have been banned from a few stores where they would take things that didn't belong to them, or they didn't pay for. Sheriff Herschel helped my Dad finagled Mom out of most of it.

Dad was embarrassed and was mad at Mom for a long time. She was sorry and changed her ways. She got better at taking. She became good friends with a black woman from the hair salon named Cherub who washes hair. Mom seems to make out like a bandit when she takes Cherub with her anywhere because security is too busy watching Cherub who doesn't steal.

Cherub is only a few years older than me. She is African American with a lot of self-esteem issues due to her weight and Mom always buys her something to eat. That is the one thing my mom pays for, and that is food. I come home early one day to find bags of new stuff. My Mom was surprised to see me.

 _"Why do you look at me like that?"_

 _"Where did you get the money for all this stuff, Mom?"_

 _"Why are you worrying about what I am doing? I am your mother or have you forgotten?."_

 _"More like the kleptomaniac."_

 _"Watch it, Carl."_

 _"Anything for me?"_

 _"No. You have a job, don't you?"_

 _"Yes and I don't buy as nearly as much as you have and you don't have one."_

 _"Get out of here, Carl."_

 _"Dad needs to know."_

 _"Know what exactly? What is it that you think you know?"_

Counseling helped mom for a while. Dad helped with buying things until eventually, he had to stop because he really couldn't afford it.

* * *

I began to take advantage of my parent's perpetual state of always seeming distracted.

I did things that if they were fully aware would not have been permitted. One of those things was having Enid sleepover. We would have sex in my bedroom, and sometimes she would stay until the next morning, she would be sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal. Mom never asked or questioned. My Dad didn't either.

It was Enid who had gone through my mother's things. My girlfriends rummaging had brought a lot of stuff to light with a true introduction to boundaries and personal space. I didn't like the fact that she discovered my mother's journal. I didn't even know my mom kept one.

I couldn't understand how my mother had a letter that wasn't addressed to her. It was a letter from Senior. A letter that was about and intended for the woman who was standing in the kitchen in a stare down with my Dad.

Enid and I broke up over it. It wasn't her place to go through my mother's things. She had no right. Now here I sit with a letter my mom has been looking for to show my Dad that the woman he was leaving her for was the very woman that Senior was having an affair with.


	121. A Far Away Island

" _Of course it hurt that we could never love each other in a physical way. We would have been far more happy if we had. But that was like the tides, the change of seasons-something immutable, an immovable destiny we could never alter. No matter how cleverly we might shelter it, our delicate friendship wasn't going to last forever. We were bound to reach a dead end. That was painfully clear."_  
 **― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart**

* * *

I kept abreast of all things related to Go Stop Insurance while staying low key, incognito, as much as humanly possible. My leadership and insight continued to keep our company sound, but I couldn't help but want more protection against things that were incalculable and that included my private yearnings that had everything to do with my heart.

I would soon need to trek back to Georgia.

I had a few weeks left to do whatever I desired. Only one place came to mind when it came to where I wanted to waste my time. It was one of my favorite places where I was guaranteed to find solitude. Senior Grimes had introduced me to his piece of paradise long before his death. We had spent a significant amount of time together there and the memories were plenty on the private island. Senior Grimes kept a modest mansion that paled in comparison to other enormous homes that peppered the coastal seashore.

There were times I could almost feel Senior's presence. Checking the calendar, this was our time we would normally spend together, happily planning our nautical course throughout the world on the hunt for Art. My tears were steady. I had lasted two days before I was certain I would need some company.

I was very grateful to my two closest friends, Sasha and Andrea, who had cleared their busy schedule for a few weeks to join me. The third friend was a notable no-show. Rosita. She was the topic of our conversation.

We were stretched out on the beach loungers while we chatted, gossiped and confided. The waves were rolling in and the sky and clouds seemed to match perfectly for the day.

"He did what?"

Sasha handed the sunscreen over to Andrea who lathered herself from head to toe. I pretended to find interest in the celebrity magazine I found in the Beach bag.

"Yeah, you heard me. Spencer slurped it. Emptied the contents into his mouth." Andrea revealed the sordid details.

"Oh, my God!" Sasha exclaimed.

"She said it was the last straw." Andrea laughed. It was obvious she was enjoying the response she was receiving from Sasha who was easily shocked.

I was reeled in against my will upon hearing the sordid details.

"Rosita is on some bullshit." I declared, placing my sunglasses back to rest comfortably on my nose.

Sasha asked for clarification. "Wait-hold up! Spencer did what!?"

"He licked a used condom _filled with another man's_ sperm."

"All because Rosita told him too?" Sasha asked.

I had no words. The conversation was between Andrea and Sasha at that point.

Andrea nodded and added, "And get this, she had her wedding ring inside."

"Inside of what?" Sasha had her hand covering her mouth after asking, trying to prevent a squeal.

"The condom filled with foreign man rain." Andrea laughed. "She said he had licked the ring clean and put it back on her finger."

"What kind of Bullshit is she into again?" Sasha sat up straight, her back no longer touching the lounge chair blocking my view of Andrea.

The word for what was being described had escaped me. The level of nonsense relayed was too much for my mind to comprehend. Unfathomable depravity. I closed the magazine tossing it back inside of Sasha's blue and white beach bag positioned between my lounger and hers.

Andrea shrugged stating, "Rosita's husband Spencer is a Cuckold. He likes to watch her being fucked by other men."

"Rosita and her fuckery." I shook my head unable to hide my disdain.

Out of the four of us, Rosita was the one who scored a husband. And out of the four of us, she was the most disturbed. Looking at her one would see this very attractive, articulate, highly intelligent woman but piss her off or have something she wants, the woman was dangerous.

"I wonder if Spencer was aware of Rosita's inability to remain faithful." Sasha eased back to relax again while we all contemplated quietly something we did not have the answers too.

Before Andrea could expound, I spoke up, "I don't want to hear any more. I am here to rest my mind. I am at a point in my life I can't handle my own bullshit, much less that of others."

Secretly my mind wanted to think about a certain someone and to discuss it with them. I had nothing but time to ruminate and dream. I needed to refocus my perspective because after months and distance I still had a piece of myself that felt there could be a chance. I still wanted him and compared every man against Mr. Blue eyes.

"Michonne, this place is really amazing. I can't believe after his death you still have access to this marvelous paradise."

"Not sure for how much longer. Seniors wife plans to put it on the market. Senior gave her the authority to do it."

"Well, what did you expect? She was his wife." Andrea emphasized the word his and wife.

"Spit it out, Andrea."

"Michonne, I refuse to believe that you and that old guy didn't have a thing. I just refuse to believe it." Andrea accused me of what I have denied emphatically for the one-hundredth time after the revelation of all that was in Senior Grimes' Will and Testament.

"I am having a hard time understanding what is difficult for you to believe. I don't sleep with married men."

"If he wasn't married?"

"Then he could have tapped this. He was old but he wasn't bad looking in the least. He was also a damn good dancer."

Sasha sighed, "I love a man who can dance."

"I had a good inkling he would be damn good in bed but that was all that I had to go on. I just can't be bothered if a man is married. I've been trying to see it from the wife's perspective. I'd made one mistake with Lying ass Ezekiel years ago and I like to think I have learned my lesson to never ever come in second or third. He wouldn't cheat on her if I weren't willing to cheat with him. The thing with Ezekiel was so Uggh. It was the worst experience. I wouldn't wish that shit on anyone. Women who like that shit-kudos. I am not the one. My self-esteem and my worth are two things I value more than being dicktamatized out of my Goddamn mind. Doing shit, I have never done before...no ma'am. Prank Calls all time of the night from wifey. And his ass in the in the background telling her to hang up the phone."

Sasha admonished the changed in the mood.

"Andrea, why did you do that? You got Michonne reliving the shit. Snap out of it Michonne. Snap. the. fuck. out. of. it. We are on a beautiful island in our itsy bitsy sexy bikinis having the time of our lives. Stay relaxed. No need to boot your face up when EZ isn't here."

"If not with you, it would have been someone else." Andrea sighed.

"It wasn't with me. Anything else would not be my problem. Besides, Senior and I had an understanding. He respected my decision and he had never made a move. I spoke with directly with his wife. I told her that I wasn't that kind of woman and if she didn't feel right or comfortable then I needed her to speak up."

"Obviously she was ok with it." Andrea reply was snarky.

"She was ok with it because she wasn't one for traveling at the drop of a hat, nor dancing. His wife knew we were just friends."

"Michonne, you need to know when to put Andrea on ignore. Like really. She is projecting her bullshit on to you. Not every single woman is trying to have a relationship with a married man. Not knowingly. And if they are damn the state of marriage in 2018."

"I am not projecting. I am pointing out that an encounter with a married man is inevitable. I have inadvertently slept with at least one, two, three, uh seven married men."

"How many of those did you know were married going to bed with them and how many of those seven did you keep fucking around with after knowing they were married and of that how many are you still messing around with?"

Sasha's point was made heavy handed and it resulted with silence from Andrea. We all knew the answer. Andrea was actively entertaining two very married men.

"I will never sleep with another married man. So help me God. Never ever, ever." I had stated with my chest. I meant every single word I'd spoke into the universe, my friends were my witnesses.

"Tell us what's going on with Senior's very married Son? Has he divorced his wife yet?"

"I have nothing to tell. I have no update. I have no clue if he has divorced his wife or not."

"How far did you go with him, Michonne?"

"My back was up against a glass window of a coffee shop," I admitted, slightly embarrassed.

"But you just said-."

"I went complete ghost after that. We'd kissed. Nothing more. We were outside a coffee shop in Atlanta. It was our first time and only time."

"Was it a peck or a kiss kiss?" Sasha sought details for better understanding of the gravity of my situation.

"The guy could kiss. Like really kiss." I spoke dreamily.

"In front of a coffee shop?"

"Pressed up against the window." I detailed longing for the man I was still hopelessly in love with.

"You are such an exhibitionist." Sasha giggled.

"He had me so damn hot and bothered. Still kind of to this day. He was a great kisser. From my guestimation of what I felt pressed up against me, I would have spent a great deal of time anywhere he wanted. He could get it but not until his house is in order." I reminded.

"Good luck with that. They never get their house in order." Andrea sighed.

"I've been seeing that one guy, pretty steady," Sasha revealed nonchalantly. "His name is Daryl."

"Really?"

"A guy named Daryl?" Andrea was instantly curious. This was an indication that Sasha was keeping quite a bit to herself lately and I knew just a tad bit more than Andrea.

"Michonne knows who I am talking about."

I ignored the look thrown my way from Sasha.

"If you are talking about that greasy homeless man you were talking to in the parking lot the day of the funeral, I am judging you right now. At this very moment."

"Says the woman who doesn't mess around with married men but is in love with a married man?" Sasha shot back.

It stung a little hearing the summary of my love life. I wasn't prepared for the jolt. The subject changed to more details about how a mechanic, motorcycle enthusiast may just be the love of her life. We ended up calling it a day and headed back inside. We walked back to the house using the side entrance of the mansion to find Ms. Ella in the middle of instructing the cook and the maid while Rick and his wife Lori, along with their son Carl looked on.

"Oh, Dear!" Ms. Ella right hand covered her heart as if she were ready for the pledge of allegiance. Lori, coldly gazed over our scantily clad attire while their teenage son was transfixed on Andrea. Rick's eyes locked with mine.

It was the only two words that carried enough weight upon witnessing the crumbling of walls to a once sturdy home.

From his wife's lips to my ears the accusation was clear, "It's her."

If I could have taken a small canoe off the island I would have without a second thought. Why couldn't there be Two Islands? One that I was on, and the other with Rick and his family, located on the other side of the world.

Andrea and Sasha tried to get me to see the brighter side, at least the house we were in was large enough to avoid them as much as possible. My plan was to be off of it by dawn.

It was 2 am and I couldn't sleep.

I needed a snack or a damn Ambien. The only thing available was a half-eaten chocolate cake. I cut a large slice from it. I sat in semi-darkness at the kitchen counter when I heard the slippers against the slate floor.

"Dear, are you alright?"

"Yes, Ms. Ella. I really should be asking you if everything is alright with you?"

"Oh, I am fine. My concern is for you."

"I don't look fine?" I wore the best game face that I could muster.

"Far from it. Same with my son, Richard."

"Why would he not be fine, Ms. Ella?'

Ms. Ella sighed with resignation. "I think you know the answer to that, Michonne."

I wasn't sure what she was alluding but I couldn't help thinking that maybe she did know.

"I miss Senior." My voice was almost a whisper.

"Oh, I miss him too. He very much enjoyed you and the time you spent together. He believed that you were better suited for our son Richard."

"Senior."

"I secretly thought it was his way to live through our son. Senior didn't like me saying or thinking it, but it was what I secretly thought. I am being honest you know."

"He loved you very much, Ella."

"I never could shake the idea that he loved me but was in love with you."

"If I had known you felt any type of way I would have-"

"Dear, please. You did me a huge favor by giving him an opportunity to have a good time without crossing the line."

My mind went to Rosita. I realized I was inadvertently part of some platonic Cuckery. I had to focus on what Ms. Ella was going on about after 30 seconds of my zoning out.

"...A shame that my husband never did like Lori. I will admit that over the years I too have found Lori a bit much but she was always looking out for everyone's best interest disguised as her own."

I was surprised by the jab at Rick's wife. It was expected from Senior but I never imagined his wife Ella felt the same way.

"Sometimes you have to have self-interest," I responded as a matter of fact.

"You have definitely been around my Senior. That is precisely his response to things. The reason why I have taken up traveling. Self-interest. I didn't quite do it much when I had plenty of opportunity in my younger years. I have regrets about it. The children were my focus, and I developed irrational phobias of losing them in ways that an unsettled mind could create. We aren't promised tomorrow, and we can't get back all the yesterdays where we could have made things better or even great. Just today. Right now."

"I needed that." I smiled.

"We all do. Sometimes we lose perspective and focus. There is a great big world out there, and it's a waste of time being stuck in a bubble from it all. It took losing Senior to experience the POP."

"Is this appropriate to say-Congratulations?"

"Yes, Dear. I've talked your ear off. Have you read what he left in your envelope?"

"No."

"I think you should."

"Well to do so, I would need to have your son, Rick present. It was the stipulation on the envelope."

"Oh Dear. My Richard has been in a terrible mood the last few months. He has moved in with his friend, Shane. I have no idea what has transpired or why but things began falling apart for him, and I think it has a lot to do with losing Senior. I suggested he gets some counseling you know, find someone that could help him but he thinks it's something he can work through with time apart from his wife."

"Just time apart?"

"Lori has hopes that they will get back together. She's been over asking for advice from me due to she's under the impression that I have experience with infidelity in my marriage. For all the silver linings Lori can find in a situation I have no idea why she thinks Senior was ever unfaithful to me. Either way, she is hopeful, but Rick isn't making any promises. He's hell-bent on being rid of her. Friendly terms of course."

"Amicable."

"Yes. They have attorneys involved. Some reason, Lori thinks she can get her hands on some money. That somehow, there is a loophole attached because of the estate. She got news last night that advised that Richard isn't worth what she thinks he's worth and to be happy with the Art that may be worth something. Richard is willing to give it to her based on Tara had someone appraise it. There is value in it."

"Senior..."

I was speechless and utterly confused at how the events were playing out. That abstract wasn't worth anything and who would even say it was and why? It was created by Senior himself. It wasn't any type of Van Gogh or Rembrandt. It was Senior random strokes with a paintbrush. We were in an Art Studio of an up and coming artist who allowed him to have at it on a blank canvas.

 _What are you doing Senior?_

I didn't know that the answer was waiting for me in an envelope from Senior. A sealed letter in my dresser drawer, stateside. All I knew was I had to get off the island, Pronto.

I found myself headed back to my room when I heard his voice.

"Michonne...wait."

I thought about ignoring him and make a quick entry into my bedroom. My hand was on the knob. I turned to look at him standing 20 feet away in the dimly lit hallway. I willed my hand and wrist to grip and twist and within mere seconds of pushing the door open I could be inside of my bedroom to hide.

"Please. Can we talk?"

"About?"

"I don't know. Anything. Everything. This."

"Why?"

"I missed you."

"What are you doing, Rick? Your wife is here. Your son. Your family."

"I know.

If Rick was perceptive he would know I wasn't going to stick around. And this was an abrupt reminder of our last time together in front of the coffee shop. I had to leave him where he stood and before I knew it he was stopping the door from closing. It surprised me when he did. I wasn't surprised by my reaction to kissing him back after he grabbed me by my waist pulling me into him. His mouth on mine. My mouth on his.

"You taste like chocolate cake."

Stepping fully inside, He used his foot to kick the door shut and together we stumbled and landed on the large king bed. I was comfortably underneath him and for a second we hesitated. Startled how quickly we ended up where we both really wanted to be, and that was with each other.

"Rick?"

"Michonne?"


	122. Michonne, Wait!

I miss the way you wanted me  
When I was staying just out of your reach  
Begging for the slightest touch  
Ooh, you couldn't get enough, mmm

Oh, if I could go back in time  
When you only held me in my mind  
Just a longing, gone without a trace  
Oh, I wish I never ever seen your face  
I wish you were the one...

 **Lyrics to The One That Got Away by The Civil Wars**

* * *

"Michonne...wait."

Michonne wasn't going to stick around and it was an abrupt reminder of our last time together in front of the coffee shop. I didn't hesitate to stop the door from shutting. I wasn't surprised she kissed me back when I grabbed her by her waist pulling her into me, my mouth on her's. She tasted of chocolate cake.

I wanted her. I wanted to devour her. My hand cupped her breast while the other still wrapped firmly about her hips, keeping her pressed against me. We had eventually fallen onto the bed in the room she occupied.

 _"Rick?"_ Michonne was already pushing me away even though her body was reacting to mine like an electrical current that kept us both shocked by its intensity.

 _Knock Knock Knock_

"Michonne?"

Instantly I recognized the voice that spoke. We came to our senses even faster. The voice of the person on the other side of the door proved to be a cold wet blanket.

"Rick."

"Michonne."

We both spoke in hushed tones.

"Michonne are you in there? This is Lori. Rick's wife. We need to talk. Michonne?"

I rolled off of Michonne who got up and quickly straightened her clothing and opened the door to find my wife.

"How can I help you?"

"I've wanted to talk to you. I have some things I want to get off my chest. Like, I need to know how long you have been with my husband?"

"Depends on what you mean by _with_?"

"Sleeping with him. Fucking him."

"Then I can honestly say I haven't been with your husband."

"I need the truth."

"You would still consider the truth a lie."

"You expect me to believe my husband wants a divorce for no other reason than he wants to be with you?"

"Is that what he told you or you believed there to be no other reason? I have not slept with your husband. I have not had sex with your husband. I have not fucked your husband. Do I want to? Yes. Will I? There are conditions. He knows them. He knows what he must do since I don't sleep with married men."

My wife was silent. I could only imagine she was fuming or appearing insolent.

"I want you to know I am not going to walk away from my marriage. I plan to fight to keep him and/or fight for every penny he's probably worth if he leaves me for you."

I couldn't believe Michonne would open the door wider where I could be seen. She did. I was no longer standing there shielded from view.

"Really, Rick?"

"I will never stand in the way or be your excuse to hold on to someone who has asked you to let him go." It was the final thing that Michonne had said before walking out of her own room.

There I stood face to face with my wife. I felt no more guilty than hoping Michonne kept me hidden. This situation was more proof that Lori and I didn't care how things appeared to anyone outside our marriage because we were so broken beyond repair. I was just grateful Carl wasn't around.

Lori had finally made a decision to leave on the next flight out. It was the flight Michonne and her friends were going to take from what I overheard them announce in hesitantly hoping Lori would change her day of departure or they would have to reschedule all together to avoid any drama.

"Has anyone seen Michonne?"

I had already gone to her bedroom. The door remained unlocked and unoccupied. Her bed appeared unslept in.

Even her friends didn't have a clue either to her location or where she may have gone off too. Carl was neither seated at the breakfast table.

 _Where was Carl?_ I wondered.


	123. Carl's Mission

"Be careful with those people who get pleasure in bringing up your past, especially when there are in the presence of a like-minded audience, and whose sole attempt is to reduce you"  
 **― Charmaine J Forde**

* * *

Dear Carl,

 _I hope this letter finds you well and able to carry out a simple task that I trust you to handle with the greatest finesse when it comes to your mother, Lori. Grandson, I know you are eager to get to work on retrieving something that could devastate your Grandmother Ella if she set eyes on a particular letter that happened to grow legs and walk off. You and I both know letters can't just grow legs, but we do know your mother Lori can take things and walk off with them. Well, this particular correspondence is loaded with enough to kill your Grandmother and possibly prolong true happiness for your father. I don't want him to see things any differently than the fact I did indeed spend an exorbitant amount of time with the woman in question._

 _I can hear you now asking what it is I need you to do and what is in it for you. Am I correct?_

 _I need you to get the letter and shred it. Tear it to pieces and toss it in the ocean. I will see you have done it because where I am, I have eyes to see everything. If you complete this task, I will have a set of keys for the Dodge Charger you've always wanted and..._

* * *

It was almost daylight. I couldn't sleep. I saw her walking up to me while I was on my mission per a letter from my grandfather who had died. His request was a test and immediately I realized she was his eyes.

"How long have you been having an affair with my Grandfather?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I heard you, but what makes you think I have to answer to you?"

"He says it in the letter he wrote to you. He was going to leave my Grandmother Ella for you."

"One day you will get to a point in your life as a man where the truth, benefits no one. You will also realize people say things they don't mean, have good intentions but don't follow through for a variety of bullshit reasons. People will disappoint you. String you along with promises, gifts, and blocked off sections of their time. Never giving you themselves fully while you completely allow this to happen over and over again until one day-I just stopped. We were better suited as friends or colleagues than lovers."

"My mom was going to tell. My mom was planning the big reveal, but she didn't know what happened to the letter. No one would ever believe my mom without it. My Dad won't believe her at all, and it has nothing to do with how much he likes you."

"Without that letter what would you have believed?"

"Knowing what I know now, everything adults do is an elaborate lie."

"That's why people say it is complicated."

There were a few pieces of the ripped paper and envelope that found its way back onto the shoreline before a wave lapped it back into the ocean to sink, slowly dissolving before gaining rest on the sandy bottom.

She was the one who had placed the keys in the palm of my hands. My Dad's name was on the damn title to the car.

I hate grown-ups but as time went on I hated her less and less. She seemed to have her shit together and she was no nonsense. I was surprised she had a sense of humor. I noticed my Dad was different around her too. She was always over at the apartment. She never stayed overnight and I never seen with my own two eyes her ever going or coming out of my Dad's bedroom. I had caught them kissing a few times and when I did she was always the one to end the night as quickly as possible regardless of my Dad's pleas for her to stay. He was separated but Michonne respected my Mom more than she realized the little my mother respected her.

Maybe she was doing it out of respect for me?

It had gotten to a point where I didn't care anymore. My Dad was happier. A happier Dad meant I could get away with more than when he was grumpy and miserable which meant everyone else had to feel lousy. Michonne seemed to be the answer to lifting a dark cloud over our lives. The extra money helped with it too. Money changed our outlook and everything seemed brighter now that we had control or at least felt like we did with my Grandfather, Senior dead and gone.

My Mom still had the dark cloud and her negativity loomed. I chose my Dad. It was an easy decision after watching her burn the painting after finding out Senior had painted it after all. The only value it had was sentimental at best. She was pissed.


	124. Tara Confronts

_"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."_  
 **― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You**

* * *

I had always thought my Dad preferred my brother Rick over me. He preferred him because they shared the same temperament. Senior expected me, his daughter, to play like a girl, dress like a girl and act like one. I was a true tomboy. At one point wanted to be one, an actual boy. It took a while for me to be okay with being a girl who likes girls.

I am fine with not going to Harvard. Instead, I had joined the military. My father wasn't okay with it, and I thought it was why he left me with just peanuts. I was under the impression that the art that was left for Rick had to be worth a fortune. Worth more than what was left for me.

The letter my Dad wrote for my eyes only, indicated it wasn't worth more than what I'd received. It was something he created. He told me to give Rick time to figure out his life. He had hoped I realized I wasn't a disappointment to him. I wasn't a failure to him at all. My Dad said he was actually proud of me for finding a purpose that was all my own and by Gods design. Blah, Blah, Blah...

Basically, my Dad was up to something as usual. His letter told me to create a false value for the art and wait for a set of events to happen before revealing it all to Lori.

I had no idea what my Dad was up to, but it took a month for things to start coming undone for my brothe. The word Divorcing was whispered my way by my mother, and soon I had Lori calling me in Virginia to verify the art value. I lied.

* * *

I confronted my brother soon after. I showed up unexpectedly at his new place. I almost didn't recognize him. He was dressed differently. He was different and it was more than seeing him with a salt and pepper beard that yanked a couple hairs out of out of spite.

"Ow!"

"What's going on, Brother."

"We are divorcing."

"Why?"

"We have grown apart."

"What happened?"

"Nothing happened. We just, Lori and I aren't..."

"I could have understood this a few years ago. Your Klepto wife taking things. You seemed to overlook that and moved past it. What's changed?"

"I've changed. Okay?! Is that good enough for you? Is that good enough of an explanation? I am no longer the man I used to be."

I knew it was bullshit. I knew my brother very well and one way to know he wasn't leveling up he avoided eye contact. I had already heard from our very own mother that my dear brother had falling in love with the very woman my Dad left our family fortune too.

I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth, "What's her name?"

My brother looked me dead in the eye, "Michonne."

"God you are such a typical man."

"Are women any better?"

"Hell, no. Liars and cheaters are everywhere regardless of orientation, asshole."

"I haven't cheated on-"

"Spare me the lies, brother. I am not your wife nor am I on Lori's side. What I want to know is what in the hell is our Dad up to and why all of this elaborate crap?"

The one with the answer came strolling out of the bedroom. I had no idea Michonne was there or in the apartment that my brother was leasing until he found a more permanent place of his own.

"Your father doesn't want Lori to get her hands on the money. If you can't seem to pull this off neither of you will either."

"Wait, what?"

Michonne handed over the envelope that had my Father's handwriting:

 **Michonne:**  
 _Do Not Open Until Richard is With you..._

I didn't get a chance to begin reading the contents of Michonne'e letter because my brother handed over his as well.

"Here's my letter too. I had just opened it a few days ago. Based on everything, with everything the way it's playing out, I have gone ahead and signed over the art to Lori. She thinks it is worth something. Her belief has her lawyer believing it. When it is all said and done, Lori will have our home, the car, and all her attorney fees paid. I have also waived child support since Carl will spend the majority of his time with me."

"So this will work?"

"The divorce is official tomorrow afternoon."


	125. Marry Me

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."  
 **― Søren Kierkegaard**

* * *

 _To The Two of you,_

 _If you are reading this, it means you are together as I had_ _hoped. I bestow to you my blessings son to take care of the most beautiful person that God has created to grace the pages of your middle chapters and for me~the end of mine._

 _I am an old man, but it made me envious and happy to see you two interact with each other for the very first time. You two are a great example to all of us old fogeys that were seated at the table watching and admiring your ability to naturally play off of each other. You have found your life mate that night, my son. And Michonne, you have now since met a younger version of me that can handle you. My son, Richard Sinclaire Grimes II is the one, and it is my great hope he's the answer to all of your dreams and desires. If he is anything like me, I say he is the answer and will prove worthy to spend all of his years with you._

 _Continue to create magic. Continue to dance the waltz, the tango, and the jitterbug. Watching you two that night was more than I could ever ask or wish to visualize between two people that I care about. I sincerely hope together you continue to create and experience the greatest passion and live seductively._

 _Remember, enough time has passed, and you both know what you should be doing right now, today. We aren't promised tomorrow. We can't get back all the yesterdays where we could have made it better if not plain great. No. Today! Live and Love!_

 _Love,_

 _Senior Grimes._

* * *

"What are you asking me, Rick?"

"I am asking you to marry me."

"Why?"

"Because I love you?"

"I hope you aren't looking for an answer right now."

"I am expecting an answer."

"You have only been divorced two hours."

"I am divorced. I can now legally marry you."

"You can legally marry me, yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, to your statement. Not to your question."

"If you can wait for my divorce, I can definitely wait for you to say, yes."

"Are you crazy?" I watched him rip up the cashier's check in half inside of the bank.

"You can add my name to the account that holds the money."

"We have to meet privately with the banker over there to do something like that."

"Are you busy? Do you have something you need to do?"

"No. I am not busy. You know that. We are spending the day together to celebrate." I pulled him close to me and stole a kiss from his always ready for kissing lips.

"Okay then. Let's celebrate with you adding my name to that account."

"Why in the world would I do that?" I was shocked by his request. If anything I was willing to remove my name.

"Dust needs to settle. I don't want to come into millions on the same day the ink has yet to dry. Plus it is for us."

"Us?"

"I trust you. You haven't run off with it. From the looks of things, you are already very wealthy in your own right."

I couldn't help but smile at him. I had no idea what he was up to or why. He had my heart racing either way. My mind was trying to convince the heavy thuds to calm down, to not get overly excited but to no avail, I was a nervous wreck. I felt like things were actually going to work out for me, for us after all.

The account in question wasn't attached to my own. It was separate, and technically I had no need to take anything from it. Adding Rick's name would give him access to money that technically belonged to him anyway wasn't an issue for me. There was just no way to relay that to the banker who thought I was out of my damn mind.

We had spent the better part of the day together appearing like newlyweds, running errands, picking up last minute items, deciding what we were going to eat later in the evening.

"I am not married. I am an official divorcee."

Rick opened the door to his apartment. His tiny bachelor pad was cozy enough for him and his son Carl who was in his bedroom entertaining what looked to be a few friends based on the number of shoes kicked off by the front door.

"I know."

"We are going to have sex."

"Are you sure about that? Looks to me your son has company." I followed Rick into his tiny kitchen where we set the Chinese food down on the counter along with the soda.

"I don't care."

"What do you mean, you don't care?"

"We can be discreet. I can."

"Can you?" I chuckled at his earnest response.

"I can. Plan to lock the door to my bedroom and all you need to do is keep the moaning to a minimum." He scooped me up into his arms like a bride.

"Me?" I was surprised by his imaginative accusation.

"I want lots of sex."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah to sex, not the proposal." I'd clarified quickly.

"I am so in love with you, Michonne. I love every single thing about you. I am going to marry you. You will say yes."

Before I knew it we were kissing passionately. My mind was swirling and every single worry, thought or concern vanished.

We had damaged our clothes in the process of undressing each other. Our impatience proved we shared the same level of desire. We were going to consummate our relationship for the very first time.

Rick was proving to be a very skilled lover. He was different from his father in the way that he kissed me and in the way he was going deep and deeper still. He had my body on fire after he finished licking and teasing each one of my nipples before kissing his way back to my neck and then to my ear where he continued to profess his love to me. This was different. So different in fact I was in awe. I didn't have to worry about being second or anyone coming before me. I, for now, was a priority as was his son. There was no other woman I was competing with or stood in the way. He, Rick took care of that. He wanted _US_ to exist and in order for that to happen, he needed to take care of his home situation before we or I could proceed down a path of possibly no return.

I was in love with him. I knew then there was a difference. I loved his father but I was in love with Richard Sinclaire Grimes, a man who I felt completed me if I ever were incomplete.

The pace he maintained in winding and thrusting kept my breast arched towards his chest. I kept my face nuzzled in the crook of his neck while we danced our way to a mutual orgasmic end. This was better than the 5 minute Waltz. He proved very, very good at Argentino Tango.

"Ahh."

"Uhh."

"mmm."

"Yes."

"mmm."

"oooh, yes."

"mmm."

 _Knock, Knock, Knock_

 _"_ Dad?" Carl called from the other side of the locked bedroom door.

 _Knock, Knock, Knock_

"Dad? Are you in there?"

"Yes!"

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. What do you want?" Rick asked.

"I'm leaving. My friends and I are going to the bowling alley."

"Okay."

"Cool. And thanks for the Chinese Food."

"Yeah, thanks for the Food Mr. Grimes." Two male voices said in Unison.

"We made sure to clean off the counter. Containers in the trash."

Soon as the sound of the front door was closed shut, we were able to breathe and laugh.

"Did you hear that? Thanks for the food? What food did we buy for them, damn it? I mean did you hear that?"

"I did."

"Yeah. Now, where were we?"

"You were about to get me to say yes," I smirked.

"Really. Was it when I...?"

Rick began to start what I now consider his slow slide in and out to the point only the tip barely remained before going so deep he grabbed my hips to meet his downward plunge.

The End! YAY!

* * *

A/N: I want to thank everyone who continues to read and enjoy this particular story. I am glad to say this intermission has come to an end. Now we shall go back to the regular schedule program shortly.

The End! YAY


End file.
